Axi and eToro hand AI assistants the keys. Here is who lets the AI press the button

On Wednesday, October 14, 2026, two brokers announced that their clients can now let a general-purpose AI assistant act on a real trading account. Both use MCP, the Model Context Protocol, an open standard that lets an assistant like Claude or ChatGPT call an outside service. The plumbing is the same. The permissions are not, and that is what decides how much of the trade the AI actually does.

Axi: Claude can trade MetaTrader 5 accounts

According to Finance Magnates, Axi said eligible clients can connect their MetaTrader 5 (MT5) accounts to Claude, Anthropic's assistant. Through Claude, clients can check live prices, open, modify and close positions, place pending orders and adjust stop-loss and take-profit levels, according to the connector's website. Axi describes the service as being in alpha testing.

The entry cost on the AI side is zero: Axi says the connector works on Claude's free plan, which allows one custom connector. Only active MT5 accounts can connect, verified or unverified; accounts that run only on MT4 or on Axi's own trading platform are excluded. Clients add Axi as a custom connector in Claude, enter the broker's MCP address and log in with their Axi credentials.

The approval step, and its exception

Any trade or order action needs the client's explicit approval in the chat before it goes through, the connector's website says. Axi's help center adds that Claude 'is not an automated strategy or Expert Advisor (EA)' and acts only when a client asks. There is one exception worth reading twice: unless the client has set a specific action to 'Always allow' in Claude's own permission settings.

That toggle lives in the AI app, not at the broker. Once it is on for an action, the per-order confirmation that the whole design relies on is gone for that action. Axi's help center also says Claude is not a financial advisor, that its answers are not trade recommendations, and that clients remain responsible for their trading decisions.

eToro: Claude, ChatGPT and Grok read portfolios and propose trades

eToro, the Nasdaq-listed social trading platform, launched connectors for Claude, ChatGPT, Grok and Grok Bot that surface a user's actual positions, balances and performance inside the assistant, with no API keys or developer setup, according to Disrupts, which drafted its report from the company's announcement.

• Read-only mode lets users question their holdings and performance.
• Read-and-act mode, where available, lets the assistant propose a transaction for the investor's explicit review and approval before execution.
• Money stays in the app. Funding and withdrawals remain inside eToro's own platform, never in the chat. Users can pause or disconnect at any time, and a demo account mode lets them test workflows first.

eToro's own disclaimer, as quoted by Disrupts, warns that AI systems 'may perform poorly, act quickly and be difficult to stop in real time.' The connectors are not currently available to clients in the US, Australia or Singapore.

The company also cited its Retail Investor Beat survey: 56% of investors said they already use or are open to using AI tools such as ChatGPT or AI agents to help pick or adjust investments nContext: n=11,000 retail investors in 13 countries · survey date not disclosed · eToro Retail Investor Beat, via Disrupts · margin: not disclosed. That is a vendor survey, not an independent study.

Where the rest of the market draws the line

Finance Magnates lined up how far other firms let AI go. The spread is wide:

For a funded-account test of how US brokers enforce these limits, see our earlier piece on which brokers enforce the guardrails.

Three questions to ask before you connect anything

• Where does approval happen? A yes in the chat window is only as strong as your permission settings. A sign-off on the broker's own platform, as at Interactive Brokers, cannot be switched off from the AI app.
• Can the AI move money? eToro and ThinkMarkets keep funding out of reach of the assistant. That is a limit the model cannot talk its way around.
• Is there a read-only mode? Starting read-only, or on a demo account where offered, lets you see how the assistant reads your positions before it can touch them.

None of these launches comes with published results on how well the assistants trade. They are access features. The AI can do more of the homework now; the decision, and the risk, stays with the account holder.