Exponential advances in AI and adjacent technologies are set to revolutionize how wealth and asset management firms serve their clients and manage their businesses. By transforming their strategies, business models, and operations through AI-enabled digital solutions, firms will not only create frictionless and engaging experiences for clients, but also boost productivity and savings, minimize fraud and risks, and drive new levels of profitability and growth.
To investigate these developments, ThoughtLab is conducting a multi-client research program, The AI- Powered Investment Firm: How wealth and asset management providers will transform their businesses through AI. As part of the study, we asked industry experts and study sponsors their views on how the industry will change in the AI era. This is the first of a set of articles providing their perspective on the wealth management industry’s AI-powered future.
Question:In which ways will the role of humans change? What skills will be needed in the AI age, and how will the responsibilities of existing staff shift?
Jamie Solomon, Head of Technology, North America & Head of Data and AI, FNZ
AI is shifting where people spend their energy. It’s taking care of the repetitive stuff, gathering info, checking forms, summarising calls—and letting people focus on what really needs their judgment.
For advisors and teams, AI won’t be telling them what to do, it will be giving them a first draft. It might pull together a client summary or flag a risk, but it’s still the human making the decision and adding the nuance.
The biggest change? People will need to feel confident working with these tools–not as experts, just comfortable enough to say: “That recommendation doesn’t quite feel right,” or “Let’s ask the model a different question.” It’s about having that awareness and knowing when to trust the machine and when to trust your gut.
That shift is already happening as firms rewrite job roles, invest in training, and help teams build the needed confidence. Because if people don’t trust the AI, they won’t use it–usability and explainability matter just as much as performance.
Erik Smith, CFP® Senior Vice President, Wealth Planning Product Management, LPL Financial
Humans will need to be more human. Our ability to develop trust, show empathy, use judgement, tell stories, and develop relationships will be more important than ever, as AI is increasingly able to supplement and automate finding and processing of information. In addition, people will need to acquire skills to utilize AI, just as we all had to learn basic software skills to work with computers every day. Understanding AI capabilities and how to use them effectively will take time, until it becomes just a standard part of technology.
As to responsibilities, the biggest change for staff will be in heavy operations and processing roles. Any job that involves a significant amount of time entering data or formatting data will be at risk of automation. This can result in either fewer support staff for advisors, or it can enable support staff to move to higher-value tasks such as interacting with clients and focusing on personalization.
However, any dramatic changes in roles and responsibilities will be measured in years, if not decades. There may be some targeted opportunities for rapid shifts, but changing the way we work typically is not a quick process. Even if the technology becomes available, we still have to adopt it, test its effectiveness, understands its risks, and redo our processes. Those steps require time, and often people are resistant to quick changes.
Steve Wray, Executive Director, Block Center for Technology and Society, Carnegie Mellon University
Humans will need to have increased judgement and personal communications skills, as much of the technical and analytical portions of their jobs could be automated. This can create opportunities for people with creativity, empathy and connection skills to move forward within a firm as they manage the new tools and workforce of AI agents.
Brie Williams Global Head of Advisory Solutions & Wealth Intelligence, State Street Investment Management
AI isn’t replacing people—but it’s helping to redefine their purpose. As intelligence systems handle more of the recognition and processing, humans must move up the value chain. Professionals will shift from information gatekeepers to judgment-makers and relationship builders. For asset managers, that means evolving roles – from repetitive output to proactive insight delivery, from production to partnership. AI accelerates the work, but human perspective gives it meaning.
John Blackman, Head of Products, FNZ
AI doesn’t remove the human role; it just shifts it. As more of the routine stuff is automated, people can focus on higher-value work: interpreting what the AI is suggesting, applying their judgment, and explaining the “why” behind a decision to the client.
Advisors and product teams alike will increasingly work with AI as a starting point or first draft. Their job is to refine it, sense-check it, and shape it into something that’s genuinely useful. That requires a bit of technical fluency, not deep coding skills, but enough to understand when something doesn’t look right, or how to guide the tool to get a better outcome.
We’re also seeing job descriptions evolve. Firms are actively redefining roles to reflect the fact that AI isn’t just another tool, it’s becoming part of how work gets done. That’s why upskilling is so important. Everyone should be confident using AI, not blindly, but thoughtfully. And at a leadership level, AI has become one of the most urgent strategic topics. It’s not something to delegate, it needs to be embedded in how we think about products, services, and delivery.
Richard Doherty, VP, Asset & Wealth Management Lead, Publicis Sapient
In the AI age, the role of humans in wealth and asset management will move from manual execution to orchestration, oversight, and innovation. Advisors, analysts, and operations staff will increasingly work alongside AI agents that handle the bulk of data gathering, processing, and routine decision-making. This elevates human focus toward high-value activities such as relationship building, strategic problem-solving, and complex judgment calls.
New skills will be essential: AI literacy, prompt engineering, and the ability to design and supervise multi-agent workflows will become core competencies. Roles such as agent orchestrators, AI governance specialists, and human-in-the-loop designers will emerge to ensure AI output is relevant, ethical, and compliant. This shift will require cultural adaptation—viewing AI not as a tool that threatens roles, but as a collaborator that augments human potential.
Peter Smith, Director, Customer Strategy, LSEG
The advisor’s role is evolving from information provider to strategic guide. In the AI age, advisors will need to be skilled in interpreting data-driven insights, contextualizing recommendations, and building trust through meaningful conversations. Emotional intelligence, adaptability, and digital fluency will be just as important as financial expertise.
Staff responsibilities will shift toward higher-value activities—relationship management, personalized planning, and proactive engagement—while AI handles data curation, monitoring, and administrative tasks. Advisors will also need to understand how AI tools work, so they can confidently explain them to clients and ensure ethical use. Ultimately, technology will amplify human capabilities, not replace them.
Shane O’Neill, Partner, Technology Advisory, Grant Thornton
People will become more effective in reviewing, challenging and critiquing information and results. Through the adoption of AI, the lift associated with producing the relevant outputs should and will reduce, allowing more time to assess and critique to ensure that the outputs meet expectations. A lot of workloads will need to evolve into the right oversight frameworks, with the relevant control checkpoints along the way.
Marc Butler, Financial Planner and Advisor, Anthony Petsis & Associates; Owner, Marc Butler Consulting; Owner, Wealth Management GPT
As AI takes over more analytical, repetitive, and data-intensive tasks, the role of humans in wealth and asset management will evolve from information providers to wisdom interpreters and relationship leaders. For advisors like me, that means doubling down on emotional intelligence, trust-building, and judgment. Clients won’t come to us just for data—they’ll come to help interpret it in the context of their lives, values, and goals. AI might identify that a client is likely to retire early; the advisor is the one who helps that client feel confident in that choice.
From an industry standpoint, we’ll see a shift in core competencies across roles. Advisors and planners will need stronger communication and coaching skills, and the ability to work alongside AI tools as collaborators, not competitors. Operations teams will become more focused on data oversight, exception handling, and maintaining quality across automated systems. Compliance and risk professionals will need to understand AI models well enough to manage oversight, bias, and regulatory reporting. Firm leadership will need to foster a culture of adaptability, continuous learning, and tech-forward strategy.
The AI age won’t reduce the importance of people—it will raise the bar. The firms that thrive will be those that upskill their teams to work with AI rather than against it and reorient their value propositions around human empathy powered by intelligent systems.
Karan Gulati, Partner, Financial Services Advisory, Grant Thornton
The “human” workforce will have peers in the form of AI agents that work, interact, and are accountable for results just like they do. In addition, humans will need to learn how to “operate” or “activate” AI processes within their respective job functions and step in when exceptions need to be managed. Humans will continue to provide judgment, context, and nuanced decision-making, specifically in complex or ambiguous situations. While AI will manage day-to-day processes, humans will have an expanded role when it comes to creative thinking, innovation, and working closely with AI tools on new approaches to problem-solving.
Chris McDonald, Capital Markets Specialist, AWS
The most significant changes lie in how advisors deliver value. Instead of spending hours on manual tasks, investment selection, and portfolio rebalancing, they are now focusing on understanding clients’ life goals, managing emotions during market volatility, and providing comprehensive financial planning that extends far beyond investment decisions. This evolution leverages AI to enhance, rather than replace, human expertise.
The skills needed in this new era are cemented in human expertise and the ability to utilize agentic ai tools. The most successful professionals in the future are those who can effectively blend deep financial expertise with technological sophistication while maintaining the human elements of trust and relationship-building. Advisors are increasingly more comfortable leveraging enhanced AI tools, interpreting AI-generated insights, understanding limitations, recognizing where automation ends and judgment begins, and explaining to their customers how these tools should be utilized and their benefits.
Rather than attempting wholesale change, firms are identifying specific use cases where AI can enhance human capabilities, prove value, and then scale successful implementations. This iterative approach helps manage change while maintaining service quality and team confidence. What’s exciting about this transformation is that it’s not about replacing human value– it’s about enhancing it. By letting AI handle routine tasks, professionals can focus on complex, nuanced work that truly impacts clients’ lives.
Dr. Henning Stein, Senior Partner, 1Business World; Finance Fellow, Cambridge Judge Business School
AI is reshaping the role of humans from solution-providers to interpreters and ‘sense makers’, particularly in wealth management, where trust and empathy remain central. Whether I’m speaking with relationship managers at a Swiss private bank or CIOs at a global family office, the sentiment is clear: AI can enhance my judgment, but it can’t replace the relationship.
In practice, this means advisors and product specialists will need to explain AI-generated outcomes in client-friendly language, detect behavioral signals AI may surface, but still act with emotional intelligence. They will also need to guide fiduciary and regulatory responsibilities with human accountability, and challenge and supervise AI recommendations, especially when clients’ long-term objectives or values come into play.
On the institutional side, the skill shift is already visible in quant teams and sustainable investment units. They’re hiring translators, people who can link data science to real-world portfolio decisions and who understand the limits of what models can, and cannot, infer. A good example: emotion analytics tools that can read tone, hesitation, and sentiment during conversations. But the responsibility for interpreting those signals and adjusting the advisory strategy accordingly still falls on the human.
Ultimately, firms will need to redesign roles, not just reskill people. This will involve new supervisory functions over AI systems and a growing need for professionals who combine financial literacy with data ethics and model explainability.
David Murphy, Head of Financial Services, EMEA & APAC, Publicis Sapient
Many suspect that the predicted transformative power of AI will create efficiencies chiefly through headcount reduction, loss of jobs, and increased reliance on machines. However, where the industry has already implemented AI tools and services, firms have found that in reality they can do more with same people, but that their roles must be redefined to focus on high-value tasks, leaving more mechanical tasks to AI.
Portfolio managers, relationship managers, and operations staff will shift from manual execution toward high-value oversight, design, and client counsel. AI agents will take on routine monitoring, compliance checks, and even initial portfolio simulations, allowing people to focus on strategic allocation, scenario planning, and the nuanced needs of high-value clients.
Emerging roles such as AI ethics stewards, multi-agent workflow designers, and cross-border compliance coordinators will ensure AI is not only effective but also culturally and regulatorily aligned. The human or people valuable contribution will lie in providing judgment, empathy, and market context that AI alone cannot yet easily replicate. By developing AI literacy and learning new skills and capabilities while embracing change, the modern workforce can become empowered and fit for purpose for the future.