We're not afraid of any robot overlords and expect the drive towards AI to be a benefit to the wealth business, not a major threat, a survey of advisors finds.

A survey of 2,000 advisors shows that more than three-quarters of them (78 per cent) are sanguine about artificial intelligence, saying it doesn’t pose a competitive threat to current ways of doing business.

The survey from Schwab Advisor Services adds fuel to debate on how far and in what ways AI is moving from the realms of science fiction to become a very present feature of the financial and business landscape. AI is being used across various fronts, such as to help set asset allocation once client data is fed into a system; to help root out dirty money; identify potential new clientele and filter through financial data to help spot investment ideas or help managers cope with rising compliance burdens.

But against a backdrop of popular angst about how robots might render humans redundant in all manner of fields, there are also signs that AI could also enhance commerce.  

The Schwab survey appears to suggest that advisors are fairly relaxed, perhaps seeing AI as more of a complement rather than a replacement, to what they do.

Some 56 per cent of the Schwab advisors polled say AI’s largest effects will be on operations; 44 per cent said AI will help drive business growth and 48 per cent even said that these technologies could balance, or offset, human biases, a factor that is potentially significant at a time of interest in behavioral finance and the study of human biases. 

Some 41 per cent of those surveyed said AI will help improve, rather than erode, advisor/client relationships. 

Finally, a tiny 1 per cent of advisors said AI’s smallest impact will be on talent.

The rise of AI also meshes with the ascent of large tech firms such as Google and Alibaba, seen by some figures in financial services as challengers to their domain. Last week, Capgemini published research suggesting that such “BigTech” players are seen as threats by incumbent wealth management houses.

Recent years have seen a flurry of interest around so-called robo-advisors, which use automated systems to calculate, for example, how a portfolio should be set up for an individual after information about risk appetite, spending requirements and other points are fed in. A number of banks, such as UBS with its SmartWealth offering, have invested in, or developed, robo-advisory models of their own to avoid being overtaken by industry upstarts. DBS, the Singapore-headquartered bank, for example, has worked with IBM’s Watson cognitive computing team to develop new services harnessing such ideas. In the US, prominent robo-advisors include Betterment and wealthfront, to name just two.

Banks have spent money on research and talent around AI. At the start of this year, Royal Bank of Canada hired a pioneer of artificial intelligence, Richard Sutton, as head academic advisor to RBC's research arm. RBC Research is setting up a new laboratory, working with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, based at the University of Alberta. 

In June this year, technology behemoth IBM launched a suite of cognitive solutions designed to help financial institution professionals manage their regulatory responsibilities and ease compliance burden through Watson, its artificial intelligence computing platform.

In July, Singapore's OCBC piloted two new solutions that use artificial intelligence to help tackle money laundering and terrorism financing. Two fintechs involved in the project – BlackSwan Technologies and Silent Eight – leverage artificial intelligence to carry out research into individuals and entities suspected of illicit financing.