Sep 21, 2026 · 28 min
AI expands stock coverage but sharpens the case for judgment
Is AI Making Us Dumber? | Michael Fritzell
The episode examines whether faster, broader research improves investing—or merely scales shallow analysis and commoditized ideas.
- 1AI can reduce company research from days to hours, allowing investors to screen and track far more stocks.
- 2Investors should retain control of calculations, judgment, writing, and investment philosophy rather than outsource consequential thinking.
- 3Differentiated inputs, including insider activity and careful accounting review, matter more as basic idea generation becomes commoditized.
Don't miss
Fritzell outlines a Claude project that scans financial accounts for accounting-policy changes, related-party transactions, disclosure gaps, and management red flags.
The brief
Michael Fritzell describes how generative AI changed his process from deeply studying roughly 20 stocks annually to screening and tracking many more, raising a harder question: does broader coverage improve returns?
He compares Groq, Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT across equity-research prompts, finding that tools evolve quickly and differ in their strengths—making workflow design and judgment as important as model choice.
AI can accelerate company research from several days to hours, but Fritzell warns against delegating calculations, distinctive writing, or the decisions that define an investor’s process.
The most concrete workflow uses Claude to examine financial accounts for revenue-recognition changes, depreciation policies, related-party transactions, disclosure issues, and management red flags.
As basic idea generation becomes commoditized, Fritzell turns to differentiated inputs such as Asia-Pacific insider data while questioning whether coverage can scale from 20 to 200 stocks without diluting insight.
What was said on this episode
24 statements · 15 positive · 6 negative · 2 mixed · 1 neutral
AI enables Michael to research roughly ten times more stocks annually.
“Instead of me doing research on 20 stocks per year, I'll do research on 200 stocks.”
Listen at 0:00
Generative AI can make users significantly smarter and faster.
“I think it's a tool to become significantly smarter and much faster as well, actually.”
Listen at 2:51
ChatGPT outperformed Gemini, Claude, and Groq in Michael’s benchmark at that time.
“at that time I found that ChatGPT was, was probably the stronger of these models followed by Gemini”
Listen at 4:50
Claude subsequently gained market share among large language models.
“since then Claude has taken market share and I've also shifted part of my usage to Claude.”
Listen at 5:05
AI reduced company research time from several days to less than a day.
“it used to take, you know, 3 or 5 days to get up to speed to a given company, now it takes less than 1 day or maybe just a few hours.”
Listen at 5:35
AI may enable investors to track roughly ten times more companies.
“maybe keep track of, you know, 10 times more companies”
Listen at 5:53
Generative AI outputs can hallucinate and cannot be trusted completely.
“with these generative AI tools, they sometimes hallucinate, so you can't trust them 100%.”
Listen at 8:41
Investors should not use generative AI for calculations.
“for that reason, I would not use them for calculations.”
Listen at 8:46
ChatGPT is highly effective at finding obscure data.
“ChatGPT in particular is amazing at finding this kind of obscure data.”
Listen at 10:14
Claude is effective for proofreading and identifying errors.
“Claude, I think is quite good at proofreading, finding issues, finding errors.”
Listen at 11:15
Michael’s investing style has substantially improved with AI assistance.
“my investing style has definitely improved a lot.”
Listen at 15:12
Targeting high IRRs appears to be working better for Michael.
“I'm now targeting high IRRs and trading around that. And that seems to be working, at least for me.”
Listen at 15:35
Michael buys stocks targeting 20% forward IRR and sells below 10%.
“I now try to buy stocks at 20% forward, you know, prospective IRR. And once they get below 10%, which is kind of like a typical cost of capital, I try to sell the stock or look for better ideas.”
Listen at 17:16
AI will commoditize investment idea generation.
“idea generation is going to become commoditized.”
Listen at 18:47
Recently IPO’d companies are often led by growth-oriented first-generation entrepreneurs.
“newly IPO'd companies are often run by first-generation entrepreneurs who, who are still keen to grow the business.”
Listen at 20:29
Claude can help identify red flags in financial accounts.
“I have a prompt for Claude to find red flags in financial accounts.”
Listen at 22:10
Providing annual reports or source material improves AI answer quality.
“if you want to get good answers, you always have to actually give it the annual report or the source material.”
Listen at 23:58
AI cannot rescue momentum investing during a bear market.
“AI is not going to help you if you chase momentum in a bear market”
Listen at 25:23
AI can retrieve information quickly but does not ensure correct investment decisions.
“making the right decisions is a different matter.”
Listen at 25:43
AI has not made people more rational over the past three years.
“it's not like people have become more rational.”
Listen at 25:55
Investors who do not use AI tools will face increasing competition.
“Competition is of course gonna increase if you don't use these tools.”
Listen at 26:20
AI will make differentiated views on popular stocks harder to find.
“it's going to be really hard to find differentiated views, you know, or variant views on popular stocks.”
Listen at 26:52
Microcaps may retain more opportunities because they receive less investor attention.
“Microcaps might be different because people aren't paying attention to them as much.”
Listen at 27:01
Finding investment surprises will become harder, but Asia still offers many opportunities.
“I'm sure that's gonna get more difficult, but then again, 10,000 stocks listed in Asia. There are plenty of opportunities.”
Listen at 27:31
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
Featuring
Claude
ChatGPTListen to the full episode and explore every guest, topic, and moment on PodLume.