{"id":461257,"date":"2026-02-11T02:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/461257\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T02:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:00:08","slug":"morgan-stanley-wealth-head-addresses-ai-stock-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/461257\/","title":{"rendered":"Morgan Stanley Wealth Head Addresses AI Stock Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a selloff in several wealth management-related stocks Tuesday, with shares of Charles Schwab, Raymond James, LPL and Stifel falling between 7-8%. A Bloomberg article<\/a> attributed the selloff to Altruist\u2019s launch of artificial intelligence-powered tax planning within Hazel<\/a>, its AI platform, and cited broader concerns about AI disrupting the financial advice space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jed Finn, head of wealth management at Morgan Stanley, addressed AI fears, saying that his firm has more than 3,500 individual tools and capabilities, including several for tax planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t write an article every time we release one, obviously,\u201d Finn said, speaking Tuesday at UBS\u2019s 2026 Financial Services Conference. \u201cBut the important point in all of it is that an individual tool is a tiny part of the capability ecosystem that is required to help clients achieve their goals. It has to fit as part of the platform. It has to be connected to products. There needs to be relationships with third-party managers to be able to deliver the advice. It has to be wrapped in a way that clients can understand and take action on. And we have been incredibly deliberate about orchestrating that ecosystem over the last several years, which is what has led to our outsized growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:Altruist Launches AI-Powered Tax Planning Feature in Hazel Platform<\/a><\/p>\n

Morgan Stanley\u2019s stock fell about 2.4% in trading on Tuesday. However, in its first-quarter earnings released last month, Morgan Stanley reported\u00a0that total client assets in its wealth and investment management division jumped to $9.3 trillion from $8.9 trillion, mainly due to net new wealth management assets of $122 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finn stressed that his firm\u2019s business model is based on the \u201cadvisor-client relationship.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that that is going to persist long past new AI interaction tools that get created,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very complicated, emotional, personal relationship that clients have with advisors. And even when the technology becomes as good as what anybody can do on their own, and it\u2019s not going to be too long before that happens, clients are still going to want advisors to leverage that technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

He likens the AI threat to the \u201crobo hysteria\u201d we saw several years ago. Now, the robo advice business (at about $800 billion) accounts for just three of the wirehouse\u2019s markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a scale business. It is going to be very, very difficult, even with the slickest, well-thought-through agents to build the distribution, to build the credibility, to have the experience for doing this in a regulated way, putting the client\u2019s interest first,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related:Goodfin Launches AI Agent Platform for Private Market Investing<\/a><\/p>\n

Rather than taking over advisors\u2019 jobs, he said AI will enhance the quality of advice and help advisors scale to serve more clients more effectively.<\/p>\n

One example is the firm\u2019s Roth Conversion Analyst, an AI tool that automatically pulls in client data. The advisor can then prompt it with forward-looking assumptions, and it will provide a recommendation on whether the client should convert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morgan Stanley is also using an AI agent to automate many routine tasks, so client service associates can focus on higher-value tasks, such as interacting with clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these tools in and of themselves are collections of a bunch of smaller bits of functionality, like the one that was talked about in the article,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what they are designed to do is make our top teams more efficient because our top teams are doing that work anyway. It\u2019s just a lot of work, and this streamlines it for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Citizens Bank stock analyst report on Tuesday\u2019s selloff echoed Finn\u2019s remarks, saying that many firms have already been integrating this type of technology \u201cto make advisors more productive, improve client outcomes and streamline back-office and planning functions. This is not a sudden shock to the system; it is part of a long-running evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:Why Advisors Are More Overwhelmed Than Ever<\/a><\/p>\n

The analysts note that the wealth management industry is relationship-driven, with clients valuing trust more than cost efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile certain components of advice can be disintermediated or automated by technology, the advisor\u2019s role has always required earning the fee through judgment, behavioral coaching and personalization (and often very personal close relationships).\u201d<\/p>\n

They also point out that technology has historically expanded the opportunity set in wealth management, enabling advisors to serve more clients and deliver higher-quality advice at scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a selloff in several wealth management-related stocks Tuesday, with shares of Charles Schwab, Raymond James, LPL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-461257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}