Vanguard CEO says AI will revolutionize asset management

By Pensions & Investments
Published on May 24, 2023

Generative artificial intelligence will revolutionize the asset management industry and produce better long-term outcomes for clients, Vanguard Group CEO Mortimer J. “Tim” Buckley said Wednesday.

“What we’re suddenly discovering with generative AI there are a lot of cognitive things that we do that are actually fairly routine,” Mr. Buckley said at the Investment Company Institute Leadership Summit in Washington. “So you’re going to go through this revolution of suddenly all those routine cognitive tasks, those will be automated.”

He referred to this moment in time as an “inflection point for our business, for all businesses” and likened AI’s potential impact to the internet. He said Vanguard’s assets under management, which were $7.2 trillion as of Dec. 31, are roughly 14 times larger than they were in the early 2000s, but the firm has not doubled its employee head count over that time. That’s because administrative tasks have been automated, which “changed how you served clients, it changed your cost structure,” he added.

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