Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) wants its clients to talk to an AI about their money, and then let it line up the trades. The catch is that a human still has to say yes.

The Nasdaq-listed broker said clients can now connect their accounts to Claude, the chatbot built by Anthropic, to research markets, analyze their portfolios and generate trade instructions. Nothing reaches the market until the client approves it.

The Client Still Has to Press the Button

Clients link an existing IBKR account through Claude's certified connector marketplace using their normal login, and the company said setup takes a few minutes with no extra cost and no separate account to fund.

Once connected, the AI can reach positions, open orders, trade history, margin data and market data through the same APIs that active IBKR users already build on.

When the AI produces a trade instruction, it does not fire automatically. The instruction lands in a dedicated AI Instructions tab on the Orders and Trades page across IBKR's platforms, where the client reviews it and decides whether to submit it as an order.

At launch the system handles equities Equities Equities can be characterized as stocks or shares in a company that investors can buy or sell. When you buy a stock, you are in essence buying an equity, becoming a partial owner of shares in a specific company or fund.However, equities do not pay a fixed interest rate, and as such are not considered guaranteed income. As such, equity markets are often associated with risk.When a company issues bonds, it’s taking loans from buyers. When a company offers shares, on the other hand, it’s selling pa Equities can be characterized as stocks or shares in a company that investors can buy or sell. When you buy a stock, you are in essence buying an equity, becoming a partial owner of shares in a specific company or fund.However, equities do not pay a fixed interest rate, and as such are not considered guaranteed income. As such, equity markets are often associated with risk.When a company issues bonds, it’s taking loans from buyers. When a company offers shares, on the other hand, it’s selling pa Read this Term and ETFs with market and limit orders, and the company said more asset classes would follow within a week.

The Claude integration is live, while connections to ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok are still going through certification with their respective platforms.

The setup builds on Ask IBKR, the in-house tool the broker launched in October that already answers portfolio questions in plain language.

Brokers Race to Wire AI Into Trading

IBKR is stepping into a corner of the market that has filled up fast. Just days earlier, Robinhood rolled out dedicated accounts where customers can let AI agents trade independently from their main portfolio, pushing further toward hands-off automation than IBKR is willing to go.

The contrast with another recent launch is sharper. When IG Australia opened its platform to ChatGPT through a Model Context Protocol server in late May, it kept the connection read-only, so the AI could see positions and sentiment but could not touch execution Execution Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Read this Term. IBKR sits between the two, letting the AI draft orders while reserving the final click for the client.

Platform vendors are wiring in too. Spotware opened its cTrader platform to AI agents through two MCP servers earlier this spring, and US brokerage Public has been testing an agentic feature that builds custom stock indexes from text prompts.

The common thread is plumbing that connects outside AI tools to live brokerage accounts, with each firm drawing the line on execution in a different place.

A Security Pitch Built on the API Backbone

IBKR is leaning on its setup as a selling point. The broker said it chose an enterprise-level integration in which no API keys or passwords are shared with the AI provider and no login credentials sit on the client's computer, an arrangement the company described as more secure than alternative setups.

That design choice doubles as a hedge. By routing access through its own infrastructure rather than handing over keys, IBKR keeps control of the connection even as third-party models do the talking.

"We believe the next logical step is to allow clients to securely connect AI tools," Chief Executive Officer Milan Galik said.

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Another Layer on IBKR's AI Stack

The Claude tie-up sits alongside a growing shelf of AI features the broker has shipped over the past year, including AI screeners, the Reflexivity-built Investment Themes tool, news summaries and the Ask IBKR assistant.

The broker has been pairing that product push with steady financial momentum, having posted a 27% jump in second-quarter commission revenue last year.

Whether wiring chatbots into client accounts moves the needle on trading activity, rather than simply matching what competitors already offer, is the open question the launch leaves behind.

For now the pitch to clients is narrow and specific. They can ask Claude how much of their portfolio sits in technology stocks, or what it would take to trim that exposure to a target weight, and get an answer drawn from their own account data. The trade still waits for them.