The retirement wars are heating up. As millions of baby boomers leave their jobs in the coming years and transition into retirement, there is a huge competition for who will manage their savings. On one hand are traditional wealth managers, firms like Edward Jones, who either employ full-time human financial advisors or empower independent contractors to help clients plan through their finances. On the other side has been the rise of "roboadvisors" like Wealthfront that use algorithms and simple financial products like ETFs to advise people at lower cost. VCs have been bullish on roboadvisors -- startups like Wealthfront and Personal Capital have each raised more than $200 million according to Crunchbase -- but there has been less investment activity trying to help the financial advisors themselves.

Artificial intelligence might be coming to asset management faster than you think. Also this week, we discuss marketplace lending, AirBnb as a "credit bureau," an electricity trade via the blockchain and one start-up's approach to selling data to Wall Street. "Eventually the time will come that no human investment manager will be able to beat the computer." These words were uttered last year by David Siegel, co-head of Two Sigma Investments, the 30 billion quant fund that returned 15% in its two flagship vehicles last year. This week, we were reminded of Siegel's prediction upon meeting with a technologist who was still mesmerized by AlphaGo, Google's artificial intelligence Go program that handily defeated Go master, Lee Sedol, last month.

Pundits opine about how automation technologies will eliminate certain jobs, fueling a rise-of-the-machines kind of fear and loathing among tech workers. Horror story scenarios aside, evidence suggests it's far more likely that automation will augment rather than replace most jobs. Witness the financial services sector, where sophisticated algorithms called "roboadvisors" pair with humans to offer investment advice. The Vanguard Group, a power in mutual and exchange-traded funds with 3.2 trillion in global assets, has written custom software that offers clients tailored investment advice, a new but crowded market for a company whose clients are largely self-directed. But while many roboadvisors act alone, Vanguard pairs them with humans, creating a hybrid model that marries algorithmic portfolio planning and relies on human financial advisors to provide a white-glove touch.