Last week I joined a number of the Fund Recs Team at The Kia Oval in London for InvestOps Europe. Here are my three main takeaways from the three days, including from the panel I hosted on Day One.
AI is here now
I think it's fair to say most firms are either experimenting with AI or are already using it in some limited capacity in their day-to-day activity. Whether it's Microsoft Co-Pilot for augmenting office applications, ChatGPT for unlocking writers block or new vendor specific implementations of AI within individual products, everyone had an opinion of how good or bad it has been and where it could go in the future. While AI has been around for a while, the recent hype wave and unprecedented investment has led to a massive improvement in a very short space of time.
What has surprised me the most, is how fast the Investment Industry has been to start implementing this cutting edge technology. Normally the adoption curve from VC leading edge investment to a regulated industry like finance has been measured in years not months. If I recall Cloud in capital markets, we were debating with clients the benefits of Cloud (AWS in our case) vs on prem, sometimes for years before they were ready to make the leap. AI has fast tracked that adoption curve which I'm most excited about.
Most talk revolved around augmenting existing workflows and software products than complete disruption. It's going to be interesting to see if AI can deliver the benefits people expect. I would argue that the early signs are encouraging.
"The gravitational pull of AI and data is unescapable" Jim Halcomb
The Gravitational pull of Data
While there were varied topics across the 3 days, barely a panel could manage to not mention to key themes, being AI and data. I thought Jim Halcomb described it well when chairing the first day, "The gravitational pull of AI and data is unescapable". Jim mentioned they have been core topics at industry conferences this year and I can't see that changing any time soon.
On data, panellists shared lessons learned at their firms about their own data journeys. Everything from getting access to your own data through to consolidation of the data at vendors like Snowflake were covered. My own panel discussed the topic of 'Citizen developers' and how in a world were business users are getting wider access and control to use data, the proper guardrails and guidelines need to be put in place. Firms said they were open to empowering business users with new tools but it must be in a compliant and auditable way.
Regulation conveyer belt keeps on Rollin
The regulatory panels wearily reiterated that there was no end in sight to new and updating regulation. DORA as an example of a new one that everyone must prepare and be ready for as well as evolving regs like EMIR which had its UK refit this week and the European refit is coming up to the end of its 6-month transition period towards the end of October. Further out, panellists mentioned AIFMD II coming down the tracks.
Panellists main ask was for clarity from regulators on the implementation of regulation. One benefit of all these new regs was how willing firms have been to co-operate with each other either in working groups or industry bodies as they look for clarity and guidance.
A big thanks to Donogh McAlonan, Martin Ware, Sarah Ford, Thomas Vinding and Joerg Grossmann. for joining me on the panel and if you're in Orlando for InvestOps USA 2025, see you there.
