Ai Funds lists HIAI, an ETF run by its BAILA model

On Friday, Ai Funds brought its artificial-intelligence model to the ETF market, listing the High Conviction US Equity AI-Managed ETF (HIAI) on Cboe BZX. The Sausalito, California-based adviser said HIAI is its first exchange-traded fund and the first public airing of the AI-Managed approach. The actively managed fund is available through any brokerage account.

The fund is new; the model behind it is not. BAILA, HIAI's proprietary model, has managed hundreds of millions of dollars in strategies used by financial advisors. It has been doing so since 2019. CEO Tal Schwartz calls it a third path beyond passive indexing and human stock-picking: a system that "manages risk based on data rather than emotion." Most strategies carrying an AI label, Ai Funds says, still rely on indexes or human portfolio managers for actual decisions.

BAILA scans more than 30 years of market history for periods resembling this one. It then applies Bayesian probability and portfolio optimization to set the holdings, position sizes, and market exposure. The model reviews the portfolio weekly and has the flexibility to adjust exposure when conditions change, per the release. HIAI seeks long-term capital appreciation with a concentrated portfolio of roughly 40 to 60 stocks. The selection universe is the 1,000 most liquid U.S. equities.

BAILA has been making weekly decisions on real client money since 2019; HIAI turns that history into a daily-priced, brokerage-accessible vehicle. With 40 to 60 names, single-stock risk will show up in the NAV. The fund's stated flexibility to cut market exposure is a promise allocators should test against BAILA's actual behavior in market stress, rather than take from the prospectus.