Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot replace a fund manager but there can be a substantial difference between those who use it and those who do not.
Newton Investment Management chief executive Euan Munro made these comments at the Investment Association’s (IA) annual conference on 20 June in London.
Munro said that he “thinks there will be fund managers who make a great reputation for themselves through AI”.
But right now there “are fund managers who own the biggest computers but they are not necessarily the best”.
He did highlight that “AI has been changing the financial industry for a long time now” but people should not “pretend that AI is trying to be human” as it is just the “brute force of data”.
Amundi Technology CEO Ben Lucas speaking on the same panel at the IA’s conference added that the gut reaction from policymakers to AI is to “regulate” it.
Lucas explained that almost everyone he knows is “handling their response to AI differently”.
He did say there is more use for AI than there is for blockchain technology in the financial services industry.
Still, what adds to the AI conundrum as Lucas sees it, is that a lot of people in the financial services find it hard to connect AI to everyday life and that there is a reluctance to do so as human nature is “sticky”.
A big issue that Lucas predicts in regard to the roll-out of AI surrounds “copyright”.
Microsoft global technology director Kate Rosenshine said that despite the increased attention on AI as of late “it has been around for a long time” and she does not see it as a “hype cycle”.
She did warn the financial services sector, that AI is not the solution to everything.
BNY Mellon is parent company of Newton which is a global asset manager.
