Machines are starting to take the place of the people who flip burgers, drive across town and, lately, manage stock portfolios.

Artificial intelligence is taking on a bigger role in making investment decisions.

A.I., including an ability to analyze data and actually learn from it, is considered useful in executing certain investing models, such as high-frequency trading, and in helping fund managers with tasks that rely on gathering and interpreting reams of information. Going a step further, an exchange-traded fund introduced in October uses A.I. algorithms to choose long-term stock holdings.

It is to early to say whether the E.T.F., A.I. Powered Equity, will be a trendsetter or merely a curiosity. Artificial intelligence continues to become more sophisticated and complex, but so do the markets. That leaves technology and investment authorities debating the role of A.I. in managing portfolios. Some say it will only ever be a tool, valuable but subordinate to its flesh-and-blood masters, while others envision it taking control and making decisions for many funds.

“We are just beginning to see a rise of the machines in investment management,” said Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke University. Although, he said, “it’s hard to define what the markets will look like” if human judgment is usurped, he predicted that “in the end, it will be a good thing for investors.”