Gen Alpha and AI set to disrupt wealth management industry, argue futurists

Artificial intelligence is set to transform financial services, argued panellists at PWM’s recent Innovation in Wealth Management Summit.

Gen Alpha – the generation of people born between 2010 and 2024 – and “AI-induced laziness” are set to be some of the biggest disruptors to the wealth management industry in the next decade, according to speakers at this year's PWM Innovation in Wealth Management Summit.

“The biggest game changer to come in the next five to 10 years is not Gen AI, it is Gen Alpha and how they utilise the emerging technologies of today to disrupt the future of business tomorrow,” writer and futurist Amelia Kallman told the audience of digitally-focused wealth managers at Glaziers Hall in London.

“Gen Alpha, our first virtual native generation, will be entering the workforce by 2030,” she added. By then, she said, we would have fully integrated artificial intelligence into many of our businesses and “hopefully’ figured out some of the major challenges that we face today.

According to Ms Kallman, the time spent trying to “conform” and “mould” AI to fit into traditional ways of working and legacy systems will be a major concern for Gen Alpha. This cohort will arrive in the workplace, she said and ask: “Why did we do it all backwards?”

Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, has speculated on whether AI can create the first one-person ‘unicorn’, a privately-owned start-up valued at more than $1bn. “While to many in this room, that probably sounds crazy, to Gen Alpha, it sounds like the next benchmark, it sounds like an achievable goal,” said Ms Kallman.

Forty per cent of Gen Alpha think AI, virtual reality, and smart assistants will be integral to their future careers, according to research conducted by Opinium. In addition, more than three quarters (76 per cent) aspire to be their own boss or have a ‘side hustle’, versus 13 per cent who want to work for others.

AI-induced laziness

Fellow futurists also argued that the affliction of AI-induced laziness could disrupt the wealth management industry.

“Can AI lead to complacency?” asked Mansoor Soomro, a futurist and senior lecturer in Sustainability and International Business at Teesside University International Business School in the UK. He claimed that while AI incorporation in the industry is growing, the realm of critical and analytical thinking may not be. This, he said, can “lead to complacency”.

He further argued that AI might lead to decision-making crutches. “A decision-making crutch is when we rely heavily on something, in this case, AI, to make choices for us to make decisions for us, instead of human judgement,” he said. He questioned whether the banking and financial industry might have an “overreliance” on AI.

In response, Romain Jérome, group chief digital officer at Indosuez Wealth Management, said that for now, the industry is still making little use of AI. “I think what we aim to do is really replace more admin tasks through AI, anything related to compliance, and all the burden that brings,” he said. “The final decision will remain human.”