Samsung Asset Management is launching an exchange-traded fund that invests in companies tied to artificial intelligence agents — software that plans and carries out tasks on its own. The product targets a shift in the AI industry from building infrastructure toward delivering actual services.
Samsung Asset Management said on the 13th that it is listing the KODEX U.S. AI Agent Active ETF. The fund invests in core U.S. companies that make up the AI agent ecosystem, including both firms that supply the technology and infrastructure needed for AI agents to operate and firms that benefit as the technology is more widely used. Because the fund is actively managed, it can flexibly adjust holdings based on market conditions and the growth potential of individual companies, seeking excess returns by reflecting new service launches and competitive shifts among companies.
The fund is benchmarked against the Indxx US AI Agents index. Its top three holdings — Meta, which is expanding its Muse AI agent service; Palantir, which builds work environments for AI agents; and AI security firm Palo Alto Networks — account for about 47% of the portfolio. The fund also invests in companies across cloud computing, data, semiconductors, power infrastructure and payments, all areas needed to put AI agents to work.
AI agents do more than simply process user requests. They grasp the goal of a task, then plan and execute the steps required to produce a result. As AI agents are applied across daily life and the workplace, the scope of related investment is widening from semiconductors such as memory chips and central processing units to services and the industries that support them.
"The AI industry is rapidly expanding beyond infrastructure construction into the stage where it is used in actual work, and AI agents are at the center of that," said Han Dong-hoon, a manager at Samsung Asset Management. "This ETF spreads investment across the AI ecosystem as a whole while using active management to respond to fast-changing trends in the AI market."