Heidi Cuthbert - Chief Executive Grafa

How did you start down this career path?

We started down this path because we realised the financial system is, frankly, rigged. It’s a game designed for the elite to win. They possess insider tools, secret strategies, and lightning-fast information that the average investor is deliberately kept away from. We wanted to flip the script. We founded Grafa to tear down those walls and democratise access. We saw that while institutions had high-speed terminals, retail investors were stuck with a legacy "search and retrieve" model. So, we built a proprietary AI-powered Natural Language Generation (NLG) engine to bridge that gap. Our goal was to give every user the same level of intelligence and speed that the insiders use to dominate the markets.

What inspires you in your role/industry? Why?

We are inspired to give the masses the same access to the type of data that helps them to build wealth and change their circumstances in life. Traditionally, comprehensive financial intelligence was the domain of the elite and is brilliant but prohibitively expensive. What drives us is using technology to give retail investors that same level of insight.

Traditional financial media is economically constrained to cover only the top 10% of the market—the blue chips. That leaves a massive void for the remaining 90% of assets. What drives us is using zero-marginal-cost content generation to cover that void. Our AI allows us to generate high-quality reports for micro-caps, exotic forex pairs, and emerging cryptocurrencies that human newsrooms simply ignore. We are building a truly inclusive financial ecosystem.

What's your approach to customer service that separates you from the rest?

For us, "customer service" isn't just about support tickets; it’s about hyper-personalisation and respecting the user's time. Our approach is to anticipate what the customer needs before they search for it.

If a user follows a company like BHP, our AI doesn't just give them a generic stock price. It instantly generates multi-format content on the stock and contextual drivers, like iron ore prices. We’ve built a gamified, intuitive interface that makes financial intelligence accessible, and we are breaking down barriers like language—serving the 80% of global crypto traders who aren't native English speakers. We serve our customers by giving them clarity in a chaotic market.

How do you innovate and stay ahead of industry trends?

We stay ahead by moving beyond simple automation into advanced, autonomous reasoning. This year, we made a fundamental architectural pivot. While our competitors are still relying on basic scripts to scrape data, we have deployed intelligent agents capable of deep analysis.

For example, our 'Research Agent' and 'Analyst Agent' work together to investigate a shareholder trade, determine if it’s a buy or sell, and analyse historical patterns—all without human intervention. By constantly upgrading this 'Human-in-the-Loop' workflow, we ensure we aren't just faster, but significantly smarter than legacy platforms.

What is the toughest challenge you've faced in your role? How did you overcome it?

The toughest challenge was the "Economic Limit" of news. To be truly comprehensive, we needed to cover over 20,000 data points daily.

Attempting this with a traditional human-led newsroom would have been financially impossible. We overcame this by engineering a Generative Content Orchestration pipeline.

We built a system where AI agents autonomously draft articles, generate contextually relevant images using diffusion models, and structure metadata in seconds.

This slashed our production cycle from hours to mere minutes. It allowed us to achieve massive vertical scaling without a linear increase in headcount, effectively solving the scalability problem that has plagued financial media for decades.

What are some of your goals for the next 5 years?

We are executing an aggressive international roll-out, taking our platform into high-growth markets like the United States, India, and the Middle East. But beyond geography, our primary focus is on a massive demographic shift: Gen Z.

We are witnessing a generation that is completely rewriting the rules of wealth. Statistics show that over 54% of Gen Z are already managing their own investment portfolios, and they are starting nearly a decade earlier than previous generations. They aren't waiting for a financial advisor; they are doing it themselves.

Our goal is to build the ultimate toolkit for this self-directed generation. We are doubling down on gamification to make learning to trade as engaging as playing a video game. By combining our AI intelligence with a gamified education layer, we are ensuring that this new generation isn't just participating in the market, but has the skills to actually win.

About Grafa a finance media technology company transforming raw financial data into engaging, actionable insights. By harnessing the power of AI, we deliver real-time, data-driven content on stocks, cryptocurrencies, forex, and economies. Whether you're tracking ASX200 performance, analysing the AUD/USD exchange rate, monitoring Bitcoin's price, or researching high-flying stocks like Nvidia, Tesla, or GME, Grafa has you covered.