Humans will always run the world

AI, fund managers and the importance of good people in the world

I spent last week in sunny Monte Carlo at the Impower Fund Forum event. Asset managers and wealth aren’t core to my wheelhouse, but I have found myself at this event from time to time over the years. (I think 2025 was my fifth outing.)

Various conversations about robo-advisors marked my first visit to this event. Back then, in the early teens, these artificial intelligence (AI) “robos” were hyped up to replace traditional advisors. I remember the attendees weren’t so gung-ho on the incoming wealth advisor robot overlords. Asset management, particularly in the wealth and private banking sectors, is a highly human, relationship-driven business. However, what these robo-advisors evolved into was a way to widen the availability of advice, influencing how all firms serve clients.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that one of the main topics this year was the growing influence of AI. Instead of crafting a linear narrative for this post, I thought I would provide a rundown of the three main thoughts that came to mind during my two-day stay in one of the world’s smallest principalities. One made me go “wow”, the second made me think “I need more time to consider this view”, and the third made me say internally “yes, yes, this is what people come to a side panel stream at a major event to hear”.

Let’s start from the bottom.

Keeping with my policy of only naming people I praise, I would like to call out Damien Barry, chief executive Officer of SS&C Financial Services International & Europe, who spoke on a panel I moderated. It wasn’t so much what he said, but the introduction he offered before speaking.

I wanted to know if anyone on the panel had any real-world examples of the impact of AI, how it interacts with legacy technology, and how it can be embedded into enterprise operations.

Damien started to answer by saying, “I apologise, but I can only speak to how we are using [intelligent automation, robotic process automation, AI etc…) at my organisation…”

I remember thinking, ‘Why are you apologising?’.

Seasoned conference attendees, especially those who frequently hear about innovation and emerging technologies, will be exposed to a wide range of hype-filled “innovate or die” type keynotes. These narratives are usually illustrated by stories from other, and often irrelevant, industries (Kodak, Netflix, or Uber, anyone?)

Those speeches have their place, but their place should be to inspire further investigation into the range of “new and shiny things” impacting our world. For someone who works in a business capacity and attends an event focused on that business, what they want to know is how their peers are working, learning, and advising with these “new and shiny things”. What Damien did by explaining real-world examples, “from his organisation,” was precisely what speakers should be discussing on a 30-minute panel, in an afternoon stream, and at an industry conference. I wish more people followed his example.

My next take is the “Wow”. I believe it was Thomas McHugh, CEO, Finbourne, who made this comment on the same panel.

AI will impact earnings calls, he said. It will be able to determine “if your CEO is lying”.

I expressed my shock to a random person I had a quick chat with as we shared a tiny upright table during lunch, and he responded with “oh, ya, that technology is already here.”

Let me back up. My initial ‘wow’ wasn’t that AI technology existed that could analyse sentiment in people’s speech and determine sincerity or a certain level of professional bluffing - the occasional ‘fake it till you make it’ we have all done at various times in our careers. (Don’t lie). My ‘wow’ came from a future being painted where “during earnings calls,” a CEO could be called out for lying … because a computer said so.

Who governs that? How do regulators deal with that? What do boards need to accept? How would senior leaders learn how to ‘game the system’? (To quote George from the old Seinfeld TV show: “It’s not a lie if you believe it to be true.”)

It’s like that scenario about self-driving cars - if that car injures or kills someone during an accident, who is liable?

What future are we walking into?

Which brings me to “I need more time to consider this view”.

There are many many column inches devoted to the so-called ‘tech bro’. Some of it is deserved, and some of it is hyperbole. But I can be safe saying that many of us have had experience dealing with those who work in the mostly ‘tech side’ of a business (IT staff, website developers, coders, programmers etc…). It is often difficult to translate what is needed from a business or product perspective to people who are dealing with a different set of tools (and may not have any knowledge of your business and/or product).

I recently wrote a story for Compliance Corylated about the final crypto roundtable hosted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. During the roundtable, Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director at Coin Center, spoke out against what he called “utilitarian calculations”.

Following on the talk that code is the same as protected speech in the US, he said that: “At a certain point, a right like my right to publish code trumps the risk that that code creates in the world.”

Now I believe that in a free country, everyone is entitled to their viewpoints. No matter how offensive or uncivilised, the police should not come to your house and stop you from holding those views or standing on a metaphorical soapbox and speaking those opinions in public.

However, most people agree that you really shouldn’t cry “fire” in a crowded theatre. If you espouse hate speech or the genocide of groups of people, expect some law enforcement interest, and at the very least a backlash from your friends and family, the general public, and from whoever owns your “soapbox”. That is not infringing on your “freedom” of speech.

For those of us who are considered in our views, opinions, and public statements, the idea that I would never consider the risks I might create in the world because “my” right to speak will “always” trump those risks is unreasonable. I would even say it is not how most humans behave, even the most stoic or libertarian amongst us.

Now, one job our future AI overlords will probably take over in the coming years is programming and coding. This will be replaced by natural language prompts, instructions, and directions created by individuals who understand portfolio validations, not Python. What Joseph Bonanno, global head of data analytics and innovation at Citi Wealth, called “prompt engineers” on a second of my Impower Fund Forum panels.

Therefore, consider all of the above. Over the past 30 years, our tech legacy, our digital infrastructure, and our current state of innovation have been designed and built by a particular segment of the population who “know how to code”.

Are we entering a world where our digital tools are built by people who “understand the business,” or actually care about the risks that code will unleash onto the world?

That's something I'm thinking about right now.

***

Outside of talk of AI, I learned something very human while in Monaco. This industry, financial technology, data, payments, fintech etc… is vast, broad, and global. However, at times, it is also a tight-knit community. You meet people at events, on social media, in comment sections, and at drinks evenings. A few years ago, I started looking forward to a list that came out every week, called The Fintech Playlist. This list compiled blog posts and commentary, pairing them with a song. It was a tiny bit of joy put out into the world.

When I started adding songs to the end of my Substack posts, I contacted Barb MacLean, the host of the list, to say her project inspired me.

I never met Barb in real life. But I felt, if I ever had, I would hug her.

Last week, I got a text from a friend telling me she had passed away.

The following week has been discussions on group chats and texts, from people who knew Barb much better than I did, on how best to honor her legacy, while respecting her family’s privacy. Just reading through these texts is a testament to just how much this woman was liked and loved in the industry. She was a person you wanted to hug.

At the end of the day, it will always be the human.

Jason Henricks has a post on LinkedIn about how you can honor and donate in memory of Barb.

In honour of Barb, here is my song. I don’t like to view death as an ending, but as part of a journey we will all make as humans. And no matter what you believe, everyone lives on in stories, memories, pictures, and feelings.

I like to offer a happy song about a place where all the drinks are free.

Club Tropicana, by Wham!