We’ve been talking with clients and industry partners—and testing AI tools ourselves—we’d like to share some thoughts for how AI will transform investor recordkeeping and subaccounting.
Operational Excellence & Productivity
- AI will perform high-volume, rules-driven tasks, like onboarding, document handling, information reconciliation, and client inquiries, leading to faster turnaround, real-time processes (e.g., NAV calculation), and uniform responses across platforms.
- Eventually, AI agents will manage simple and complex data flows between multiple custodians, fund administrators, distributors and asset managers.
- Human customer-service agents will be assisted by AI agents, and their responses to client inquiries will be more consistent. For some matters, investors will turn directly to AI agents as a first point of inquiry.
- AI agents will free up skilled staff to focus on complex service and client-facing activities. The productivity gains will underpin tighter service-level commitments and allow greater focus on strategic initiatives.
Compliance & Risk Management
- AI-powered compliance checks—AML, KYC, fact verification, and real-time fraud detection—will improve reliability and enable faster exception handling.
- Trade and reconciliation systems will leverage AI tools to lower risk and provide an early warning system for potential breaks.
- Especially in high-risk or sensitive areas, “human in the loop” models and tiered oversight will remain essential.
- Security and privacy best practices for data (at rest and in motion) will evolve to protect sensitive data as it’s used in new ways.
Strategic Innovation
- Asset managers will be able to launch products more quickly, and service providers will be more flexible in handling them.
- Companies will be able to focus more closely on their business priorities, with fewer exceptions to handle.
Conclusion
AI is set to change investor recordkeeping and subaccounting by making operations faster and more efficient, with less risk. People will remain vital for oversight and complex decisions, and AI will free up resources and time for firms to focus on growth and innovation. So, implementing AI positions companies to improve service and stay competitive.