In 2025, artificial intelligence became deeply embedded in the hedge fund industry, transforming research, operations, and increasingly, investment decision-making. One of the clearest indicators of this shift comes from J.P. Morgan’s 2025 institutional survey, which found that 46% of hedge funds actively use AI technologies, up from just 18% the prior year. An additional 30% are exploring AI adoption, leaving only 24% not engaged with AI at all. This marks one of the most rapid technology adoption cycles the sector has recorded.
The rise of generative AI accelerated this trend. According to a 2025 report by the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) and Marex, 95% of hedge funds surveyed use generative AI in some capacity, a substantial increase from 86% in 2023. While early use cases were concentrated in document summarization, coding assistance, and workflow automation, the scope of application expanded significantly throughout 2024 and into 2025.
Crucially, hedge funds began moving beyond operational uses toward strategic and front-office integration. AIMA reported that 58% of fund managers expect generative AI to play a larger role in investment decision-making within the next year, compared with just 20% in earlier surveys. This shift reflects growing confidence in AI’s ability to support forecasting, signal generation, and scenario analysis particularly within data-intensive strategies such as global macro, quantitative equity, and multi-asset systematic trading.
Hedge fund employees also gained broader access to AI tools. Industry research cited by IG shows that roughly 86% of hedge fund managers now provide staff with access to generative AI tools for tasks such as research processing, coding, and internal analysis. This widespread access points to a structural change in how investment teams work, with AI increasingly acting as a real-time analytical assistant.
The rapid pace of adoption is reshaping competition within the industry. Firms with the infrastructure to deploy AI at scale integrating data engineering, cloud computing, and model governance are widening their capability gap. Meanwhile, smaller managers are adopting off-the-shelf generative AI tools to improve productivity and narrow resource disparities.
By the end of 2025, AI had moved from a peripheral tool to a defining capability within the hedge fund sector. From research automation to investment modelling, hedge funds increasingly regarded AI not as a discretionary enhancement but as a core component of their operating and investment frameworks.
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Ref: Alternative Investment Management Association, & Marex. (2025). Generative AI in hedge funds: From experimentation to everyday use. Marex Group. Alternative Investment Management Association. (2025). Front office GenAI adoption shifts from “if” to “when” for leading fund managers. AIMA. Hedge Fund Alpha. (2025). Hedge funds rapidly scaling up AI and data usage. IG Prime. (2025). The growing influence of AI on hedge fund operations. IG Group.
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