Bracket22: Brian Kelly's AI Trading Firm Keeps a Human in Charge

Brian Kelly says he has replaced the overhead of a global trading staff with AI agents that cost about $30,000 to $40,000 a year to run. His new proprietary firm, Bracket22, uses the agents for specialized research across cryptocurrencies, stocks and commodities, but Kelly retains the final trading decision.

The setup is a narrowly bounded version of an AI-first finance operation. Bracket22 invests only Kelly’s own capital, and he says he reviews the agents’ outputs before applying human judgment to decide whether to trade.

A trading desk organized around specialists

Kelly founded the firm after closing his cryptocurrency hedge fund in early 2025 and testing AI applications later that year. He describes Bracket22 as powered entirely by agentic AI, with separate agents assigned different pieces of the research process.

• Steffi handles technical analysis.
• Desmond handles quantitative strategies.
• Houston serves as mission control and pulls the work together.

Kelly said he crafted the agents as specialists to isolate their views of his trading work. The division of labor supplies him with different inputs, but it does not transfer the investment decision: Kelly said he makes the final call after reviewing their work.

Lower overhead is paired with a human checkpoint

The cost figures are Kelly’s estimates, based on a previous firm that he said had about seven or eight employees around the world. He also estimates that the agents have made him at least 10 times more productive.

Bracket22 therefore makes a more limited proposition than handing an autonomous mandate to software. Its agents handle defined research roles, while the person whose money is invested keeps authority over the trade. That boundary leaves the firm’s AI system as the operating core without making it the final decision-maker.