How AI Is Reshaping Business—Insights from ThoughtLab’s Wealth Management Study

Few forces have shifted the business landscape as profoundly as artificial intelligence. For communications professionals, AI isn’t just a technological advancement. It’s reshaping how brands position themselves, communicate complex ideas and build trust in a fast-paced, data-driven world. The same forces transforming wealth management – personalization, automation and transparency – are also redefining how organizations engage with their audiences and articulate their value.

To be released in its entirety in early December, ThoughtLab’s new research, The AI-Powered Investment Firm, explores how artificial intelligence is transforming wealth and asset management. The lessons from this work apply across industries, offering a roadmap for how organizations can reimagine their operations, customer engagement and growth strategies through AI.

Here is a brief look at the answers garnered from the research from the research:

Q: How will AI transform the industry, and what are the biggest opportunities and challenges?

James Dunne, Managing Director, FNZ: AI will bring hyper-personalization, real-time insights, and scalable advice to the forefront—lowering costs and improving accessibility. The biggest opportunity is democratization, but firms must navigate regulatory uncertainty and ensure AI promotes inclusion, not division.

Peter Smith, Director, Customer Strategy, LSEG: AI enables advisors—and professionals in any field—to deliver more personalized, timely and scalable advice. The challenge is to maintain transparency and trust while embedding AI into workflows.

Richard Doherty, VP, Asset & Wealth Management Lead, Publicis Sapient: Agentic AI will embed intelligence across operations, from onboarding to compliance. The result: faster innovation, personalization and resilience. But firms must manage governance, integration and transparency to prevent uncontrolled AI proliferation.

Jamie Solomon, Head of Data and AI, FNZ: AI simplifies and accelerates processes that were once slow and manual. But without clean, connected data, even the best AI models fall short. True transformation depends on enterprise-level data and integration.

Marc Butler, Financial Planner and Consultant: AI helps advisors—and professionals across sectors—spend less time on routine tasks and more time on meaningful work. The goal is not replacement but augmentation. The challenge lies in data security, model transparency and cultural adoption.

Chris McDonald, Capital Markets Specialist, AWS: AI and agentic workflows are democratizing access to sophisticated services while enabling personalization at scale. The biggest challenges remain data quality, privacy and legacy integration—issues shared by every industry adopting AI.

Dr. Henning Stein, Cambridge Judge Business School: AI is enabling greater transparency and access but requires a mindset shift. Many executives still see AI as a bolt-on. True impact comes when it becomes the catalyst for reimagining business models entirely.

David Murphy, Head of Financial Services, EMEA & APAC, Publicis Sapient: AI offers a path out of decades-old complexity. Agentic AI could deliver up to 40% efficiencies by streamlining operations, improving compliance and transforming data into actionable insights. It’s the same story we’ll see across every data-driven industry.

The Takeaway

From a communications lens, AI isn’t only transforming operations, it’s redefining reputation. The growth of intelligent systems challenges organizations to be more transparent, authentic and proactive in how they share their narratives. Brands that pair innovation with ethical communication will lead the next era of trust-building.

AI is no longer a distant vision – it’s here, accelerating transformation across sectors. The experts interviewed by ThoughtLab agree that success depends on pairing powerful technology with strong governance, cultural change and a commitment to using AI as a force for inclusion, trust and human progress.

Insights and quotes sourced from ThoughtLab’s ongoing research program, “The AI-Powered Investment Firm.” Wireside is a proud sponsor of this research.