Machine Learning is also used in more Qualitative ways. At AltX we were using machine learning to not only identify what news, blog and regulatory documents where relevant to specific Hedge Funds, but also to pull actionable information from those sources in near real-time. The ability to identify specific named entities from those sources and determine what actions they took. For example being able to update our internal relationship graph when a person left or joined a specific Hedge Fund. Having this level of near instant transparency of valuable information is critical in finance today.
Source: Quora