More and more, financial firms are turning to machines to do the job humans have done for decades.

Last spring, wealth management firm Charles Schwab launched a new service called Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. The service is unique in that it’s not a person who decides where to invest your money, it’s an algorithm – lines of code programmed into a computer.

“It’s lower cost for the investor,” says Tobin McDaniel, who leads the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios team.

“As opposed to working with a traditional advisor where you might pay up to 1%, here you get portfolio management at essentially no management fee.”

To get started with Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, you answer a short questionnaire aimed at determining your appetite for risk and your investment goals. Algorithms then…