HOW TO PLAY IT

The artificial intelligence offerings from EquBot are expensive, with annual fees of 0.77% and 0.79%. A cheaper taste of computer-driven investing can be had at Vanguard, where a quant group under John Ameriks looks for buy signals in numerical data. Since its inception in 1995, the Vanguard Strategic Equity Fund (fee: 0.17%) has edged ahead of its small- and mid-cap index.

The case for Vanguard’s new factor funds is more subtle: the theory that you should favor a strategy with strong long-term performance and weak recent performance—meaning the stocks are temporarily cheap. Take a look at Vanguard U.S. Multifactor ETF (fee: 0.18%). William Baldwin is Forbes’ Investment Strategies columnist.