Episode summary
Jack Kokko - Building the Google of Finance at AlphaSense (EP.461)
Capital Allocators with Ted Seides
· · Hosts: Ted Seides · Guests: Jack Kokko
Summary
Jack Kokko traces AlphaSense back to his days as an investment banking analyst in London and San Francisco, where fast-moving deal work and manual research tools made him feel he could miss something critical. That frustration shaped the original idea: a semantic search engine that could understand finance vocabulary and surface the right filing, transcript, or research paragraph faster than a person could do it by hand. Over time, the product broadened from search into an AI-powered research platform built on a large corpus of public filings, earnings calls, broker research, and proprietary expert content.
He argues that large language models have turned AlphaSense’s long-held vision into something much more powerful: a system that can accept natural-language questions, reason across huge document sets, and return cited answers and deep research reports. Jack says the company is now pushing into AI-generated expert interviews, which could scale channel checks and recurring industry monitoring that were previously too labor-intensive for human analysts.
The conversation also covers how AlphaSense prices its offerings, why enterprise adoption is broadening beyond hedge funds into corporations, and how the company evaluates models in a fast-changing AI landscape. Jack’s long-term goal is an always-on intelligence machine that proactively monitors markets, identifies gaps, and helps users make faster, higher-confidence decisions.
Key takeaways
- Jack Kokko says AlphaSense was born from his analyst-era frustration with manual research and the fear of missing something important in a high-stakes boardroom.
- He says the platform has evolved from semantic search into an AI research engine that can produce a 10-page deep research report in about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Kokko argues that LLMs have raised the bar for everyone, but AlphaSense’s edge comes from specialization, citations, and deep access to proprietary and public content.
- He says the new AI interviewer can automate expert calls and recurring channel checks, creating a scalable way to gather fresh industry intelligence.
- Kokko says the business is still mostly priced on a fixed basis, but enterprise-wide adoption is pushing packaging beyond traditional per-user software models.
Notable quotes
“a single deep research report that our AI produces now gives them same 10 pages that they spent three weeks producing with a team of people”
“We are raising the bar for sure as any technology that is introduced into the investment process”
How the episode opens
A single deep research report that our AI produces now gives them same 10 pages that they spent three weeks producing with a team of people. So it just gives you now this incredible efficiency and breath in what you can do. Allows you to do much more diligence and ultimately be more confident in your decision-m and still be a lot faster.
So it's going to addresses the quality and the speed and the confidence all at once. I'm Ted Sides and this is Capital Allocators. My guest on today's show is Jack Koko, co-founder and CEO of Alphasense, the market intelligence platform often described as Google for finance.
The company's 6,000 customers canvas 90% of the top asset management firms, all the world's leading investment banks, and over half of the Fortune 500 companies. Our conversation covers Jack's early frustration as an investment banking analyst that sparked the idea for AlphaSense, the evolution of the business from a simple semantic search tool to an AI powered research platform, the promise and perils of LLMs and highstakes decision-making, and Jack's vision of an always intelligence machine that will transform how business gets done. Jack offers a fascinating glimpse at the intersection of technology, data, and investment decision-making.
Before we get to Ted's interview, it's football season, which in my house also means it's indoctrination season. Because, let's face it, young minds are malleable. And when you've got kids, you've got a once- ina-lifetime chance to wire them the right way with your favorite football teams.
Just ask my four-year-old. Go dogs. Sick him.
Woof woof woof. Now, that's an easy one. The Georgia Bulldogs are a college football powerhouse.
Three national championships in recent years, tons of glory. Who wouldn't want to be a dogs fan, but on Sundays?
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- alpha sense platform
- ai powered research
- llms in decision making
- investment banking research
- always-on intelligence
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GOOGL
- GOOG
- AlphaSense
Watch the episode
Watch “Jack Kokko - Building the Google of Finance at AlphaSense (EP.461)” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Capital Allocators with Ted Seides, this episode and its artwork belong to Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
