From poverty to profit: How ChatGPT helped Edward Frank Morris outperform the stock market

Dubai: Edward Frank Morris doesn’t fit the mold of a typical investor—or tech CEO. The CEO of AI consultancy Enigmatica and a global leader in Prompt Engineering, Morris has no formal background in computer science or finance. Yet during the highly anticipated ARM IPO in September 2023, he used ChatGPT as a tool for investment due diligence and walked away with a 30 per cent return—triple his usual yield.

“I used ChatGPT to summarize financials, assess risk, and challenge my thinking,” Morris said in an exclusive interview with Gulf News. “It didn’t just support the process—it elevated it.”

A nontraditional path to AI leadership

Raised in poverty on the streets of Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, and later in a UK council flat, Morris grew up relying on his mother’s disability benefits and a carer’s allowance. He studied journalism at Solent University, where he developed a passion for storytelling—not coding. But it was that foundation in narrative that shaped his distinctive approach to AI: one that bridges technology, ethics, and human empowerment.

Today, Morris has appeared on the front page of the Financial Times, graced NASDAQ’s Times Square billboard, and featured in Forbes almost monthly. He teaches Prompt Engineering and Generative AI at institutions around the world, from Oxford University to Ukraine’s Taras Shevchenko University. And yet, his tools remain grounded—even personal.

ChatGPT as a financial partner

Since the ARM IPO, Morris has significantly evolved his approach to AI-assisted investing.

“I don’t use it the same way anymore,” he said. “My prompts are far more detailed, and I’ve even built out custom AI agents to support the process. With newer reasoning models from ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Gemini, the quality of analysis is just on another level.”

While Morris still sees ARM’s IPO as a standout moment, he says consistency is now the goal—not huge wins. “The 30 per cent return was rare, but since then, AI has helped me make steady, reliable gains. More importantly, I now use ChatGPT as a thought partner—not a crutch. Too many people fall into the trap of letting AI think for them. It should always feel like a collaboration, not delegation.”

A financial advisor in your pocket?

With integrations into messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, Morris still refers to ChatGPT as his “financial adviser in his pocket.” But he’s expanded its use cases well beyond quick insights.

“Generative AI can now generate entire due diligence reports,” he said. “But its value depends entirely on the mindset and the quality of the prompts. Even the most powerful tools are useless if you’re not asking the right questions.”

Morris is blunt about one common pitfall: AI fatigue. “A lot of companies get burned out using ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot—not because of the tools, but because they don’t know how to use them effectively. It’s not about being AI-educated—it’s about being AI-enabled.”

Engineering better prompts—and better outcomes

Since his early days using ChatGPT for investing, Morris has transformed his prompting strategy. He now uses Chain-of-Thought prompting, multi-step refinement, and reasoning models to extract deeper insights. For clients, he often builds custom agents that automate research and due diligence tasks—freeing executives from spending hours manually prompting.

“No CEO has time to spend four hours a day chatting with an AI,” he said. “That’s why I build systems and train teams—so they can act on insights, not just read them.”

His advice to solo users is simple but powerful: “Subscribe to ChatGPT Plus. Use it daily. Improve your prompts. Add context. Layer your thinking. You don’t need a course to start—you need persistence.”

Morris believes the future of investing—and of business at large—belongs to those who master the interface between human judgment and machine intelligence.

“You might start with one simple prompt,” he said, “but if you keep refining it, keep building, you’ll be surprised how far you can go. Sometimes, from one prompt… you build an empire.”