What the Next Generation Wants From Wealth Managers: Part 2

Summary

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Merryn Talks Money — "What the Next Generation Wants From Wealth Managers: Part 2"

Host: Merryn Somerset Webb (Bloomberg)
Date: July 22, 2026
Main Panelists:

• John Stepek (Senior Reporter, Author of the Money Distilled Newsletter)
• Charlie Morris (CIO & Founder, ByteTree)
• Jean Damien Marie (Global Head of Investments, Barclays Private Bank & Wealth Management)

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Episode Overview

In this second half of a special live panel, Merryn Somerset Webb and her guests dig into the evolving world of wealth management, focusing on how artificial intelligence—and technology broadly—will reshape the industry. The discussion highlights where AI adds value, the impacts on client relationships and investment returns, the growing importance of holistic planning, tax optimization, and what really differentiates future-ready wealth managers. They close with thoughts on digital assets, client data, and partnerships with fintechs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Role of AI and Technology in Wealth Management

[02:37–06:56]

• Productivity, Insights, and Client Experience

  • AI is expected to boost all these areas. Tools can democratize high-touch services for clients at lower asset levels.
    • "We're working on... helping clients enjoy the high touch service that you could only afford at a certain level, at a much lower level. And that's really the revolution I think." – Jean Damien Marie [03:09]
  • AI can automate basic tasks, freeing human advisors for nuanced client service.
    • "You can use AI agents to do basic work... and you can concentrate on the actual client service." – Merryn Somerset Webb [03:24]

• Limits of AI: Human Judgment Still Central

  • Despite advances, human insight remains critical; past attempts at pure robo-advice have failed.
    • "We've really put back the human in the middle in that part of the advice process because this is what's working." – Jean Damien Marie [04:09]

• Investment Process & Alpha

  • AI can accelerate research and information processing, especially for “quant” tasks. However, it doesn't create new alpha—it merely distributes it.
    • "There's no more returns coming from AI. There's no alpha coming from AI. Alpha is a zero sum game." – Charlie Morris [05:44]
  • AI portfolios typically recombine known information; real edge remains with rare new insights and long-term discipline.
    • "LLMs... are not creating new information or new ideas, they're simply correlating old or more likely recent information." – Merryn Somerset Webb [06:31]

2. What Will Differentiate Top Wealth Managers for the Next Generation?

[06:56–10:17]

• Not Just Investment Returns—Tax and Holistic Planning

  • Regulatory skills and tax optimization will eclipse simple portfolio returns as primary value drivers.
    • "The biggest value add I think for almost any wealth advisor will be... decent tax advice." – John Stepek [07:19]
  • Expect demand for multi-jurisdictional solutions like “second passports” due to shifting government policies.

• Hyper-Personalization & Deep Client Engagement

  • Modern wealth management must anticipate future tax changes and understand family values and long-term goals.
    • "You actually understand the whole family, all the dynamics, all the beliefs as well, like the values for next gen, et cetera. And I think it's really, really important." – Jean Damien Marie [10:17]

• Education & Time Advantage

  • Long-term compounding and financial literacy remain key—“time should be on your side.” [09:37–09:57]

3. Partnerships, Data, and Digital Transformation

[13:15–15:31]

• Tech Infrastructure and Third-Party Partnerships

  • Banks will increasingly build partnerships instead of developing everything in-house, but security, mutual understanding, and oversight of AI/data usage are paramount.
    • "We're really happy to just partner with people... The question will be how many? In this world where you really want to be on top of your architecture security." – Jean Damien Marie [13:37]
  • Fintech partnerships drive innovation, but must be balanced with “scaling resilience.”

• Client Data for Personalization

  • Rapid progress is being made in using behavioral data to tailor services and anticipate client needs.
    • "Understanding of the client behavior across all dimensions... is a very big part. So it's actually happening fast." – Jean Damien Marie [15:01]

4. Digital Assets in the Modern Portfolio

[15:31–17:50]

• Bitcoin and Crypto’s Role

  • Bitcoin is seen as digital gold; other “layer one” blockchains (Ethereum, Solana) offer infrastructure for asset transfers. Exchanges form another credible group. Many digital assets remain unproven or lack scale.
    • "You've basically got Bitcoin as the only sort of store of value, the sort of a digital gold proxy, as it were." – Charlie Morris [15:48]

• Tokenization and Future Infrastructure

  • Growing client demand for tokenized assets signals infrastructure changes for private banks.
    • "For us, the tokenization part of it is really important. I think we'll see so many more clients coming and asking for us to onboard an asset somewhere that's been tokenized somewhere else." – Jean Damien Marie [17:07]

• Classic FS Slogan

  • "What you should do is do what everyone else does in the financial services industry and say, say I love blockchain, but I don't like crypto." – Charlie Morris [17:25]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments by Timestamp

• On democratizing high-touch service via AI:
  "Helping clients enjoy the high touch service that you could only afford at a certain level, at a much lower level. And that's really the revolution." — Jean Damien Marie [03:09]

• On AI and investment alpha:
  "There's no more returns coming from AI. There's no alpha coming from AI. Alpha is a zero sum game as we know." — Charlie Morris [05:44]

• On the rising importance of tax advice:
  "If you're talking about the next decade, then tax is going to be where the biggest, biggest value add I think for almost any wealth advisor will be." — John Stepek [07:19]

• On holistic family and wealth planning:
  "You actually understand the whole family, all the dynamics, all the beliefs as well, like the values for next gen, et cetera. And I think it's really, really important." — Jean Damien Marie [10:17]

• On digital assets, Bitcoin, and blockchain:
  "You've basically got Bitcoin as the only sort of store of value, the sort of a digital gold proxy." — Charlie Morris [15:48]
  "I love blockchain, but I don't like crypto." — Charlie Morris [17:25]

---

Chapter Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 02:37 | AI's Potential in Wealth Management | | 03:09 | Democratization of High-Touch Service | | 04:09 | The Need for Human Advisors | | 05:44 | AI and the Myth of Investment Alpha | | 06:56 | What Will Differentiate Future Wealth Managers? | | 07:19 | The Coming Tax Optimization Era | | 10:17 | The Family, Anticipation, and Deep Planning | | 13:15 | Tech Partnerships and Third-Party Providers | | 15:31 | Digital Assets: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Tokenization| | 17:25 | Industry Cynicism: Blockchain vs. Crypto |

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Takeaways

• AI will transform the logistics and client experience in wealth management, but human expertise and personalization will only grow in value.
• Future-leading wealth managers will win by delivering sophisticated, hyper-personal planning—including advanced tax optimization and multi-jurisdictional advice.
• Partnerships with tech and fintech providers are essential, but oversight and security are now critical concerns.
• Digital assets and tokenization are set to reshape what clients expect in their portfolios, but skepticism about broader crypto persists.

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This summary provides a comprehensive guide to the episode, helping listeners and non-listeners alike grasp its key themes and insights, directly in the panelists' own words and style.

Transcript

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Bloomberg audio studios podcasts radio news.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Welcome to Marion Talks yous Money, the personal finance edition of Marion Talks Money. In these bonus podcasts, we talk about the best strategies for making the most of your money. I'm Maren Sumset Webb, Editor at Large for Bloomberg UK Money. We've got the second half of the special broadcast we recorded at the Bloomberg offices in London on 14 July. If you missed the first portion, go back and listen to last week's episode. It was an hour long panel focused on how the world of wealth management is changing, about the rise of next generation wealth clients and the growing role of alternatives in modern portfolio construction. The panelists were John Stepek, senior reporter and author of the Money Digital Newsletter Charlie Morris, Chief Investment Officer and founder of bytetree, a leading provider of investment research in traditional finance and digital digital assets. We also have Jean Damien Marie, global Head of Investments for Barclays Private bank and Wealth Management. Here is the second half of Our

conversation, I think we advertised we were going to talk about how AI, etc. Would affect the wealth management business. So here we go and we do have time for questions so do send more in. I've got quite a lot but more is good. This is kind of the key, the absolute key to the wealth management business. Over the next next couple of decades technology and AI are transforming the investment process. Where do you see AI creating the greatest value for advisors over the next three to five years? Is it improving productivity, enhancing investment insights or delivering a better client's experience? I mean I would hope that it will be all three.

[Jean Damien Marie]

I think it's probably all three. Yeah, I think, I think what's going to happen back to democratization is what we're working on is really to help clients enjoy the high touch service that you could only afford at a certain level, at a much lower level. And that's really the revolution I think

[Maren Sumset Webb]

because you can use AI agents to do basic work, can be augmented, done by somebody and you can concentrate on the actual client service. To fish stuff.

[Jean Damien Marie]

Absolutely. But what we've seen in our experience here is you do need human judgment as I'm sure you know. We had a, an attempt with robo advice, it didn't work out very well. We've launched a month ago a planning led service with an advisor in the middle. That is the opportunity I think clearly you're going to see a higher quality advice deliver that scale I think thanks to AI.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

So it'll definitely improve productivity. I mean I think we know that although it won't necessarily improve productivity productivity in such a way that you will end up getting rid of human staff. Right. People aren't going to lose their jobs over this, they're just going to become more productive and hence better at the client facing end.

[Jean Damien Marie]

Yeah, that's our own experience really. We've actually really put back the human in the middle in that part of the advice process because that this is what's working.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

So the client experience and the actual relationship with the advisor should improve. And what about actual better investment outcomes? Are you going to be able to use it to improve your investment process, to improve the insights?

[Jean Damien Marie]

So I'm more quant guy by training. I'm fascinated by the ability to go for research now through tools which are quite spectacular. Right, so. So again the insights is still required. Like we value the opinion, we value the analysis but how much you can process quick is quite spectacular, that's for sure. And that's really moving fast now. Yeah, to the point of Again, is Alpha going to disappear thanks to that? I think that's a wider discussion.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

It's the same tool as what happens to the alpha.

[Jean Damien Marie]

Yeah, I'm optimistic on that.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Charlie, you construct portfolios, you must be finding that AI is changing the way you work.

[Charlie Morris]

Well, it's like having an assistant. So that's good, but there are better things you can do with it. I was discussing this morning, would I trust it to reevaluate our portfolios? The answer is no. Would I trust it to even book trades? No, I wouldn't. Not at this point. Although we have experimented. But as we grow to many more portfolios then I think we'll have to. So I think that's the interesting part. But to answer that question, there's a lot of admin in having a client in the wealth management industry that's solved by or improved by AI. And I think the client experience will be much better. But the most useful thing that the industry can do is deliver returns. There's no more returns coming from AI. There's no alpha coming from AI. You know, Alpha is a zero sum game as we know. It comes from some and it goes to others. And the beta is the direction of and the returns of the market and they're not going to be returned, they're not going to be changed materially by AI over the long term either. So. So I don't think anyone's going to make more money out of it in the next 10, 20 years. This current wave of excitement, you know, it's not going to last forever. Once that's over, let's look through that. It's going to be back to normal. But I think that there's going to be a new bunch of actors who do better and others that lose out. But of course the buffetology will always win through long term decisions. I think that I will have no chance against long term decision making, good decision making, which is what value investors thrive of. So that stays. I don't think it changes at all. But the short term shenanigans and the narratives and stuff, they'll just go even more crazy than they've already been, I

[Maren Sumset Webb]

suppose because as you were saying earlier, when we're talking about creating AI portfolios, if you're using an LLM of any kind, they're not creating new information or new ideas, they're simply correlating old or more likely recent information. So maybe the insights are not.

[Charlie Morris]

There's that. And so if they're just sort of, you know, really sophisticated, Google in that sense, Then, then I think there's probably not much edge there if everyone's got it.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, we do have more questions. Got to move on. John, I know you're not a wealth manager, but I still think that that be able to help with this one and then I'd love to hear your views on it as well. Looking ahead, what do you believe will differentiate the leading wealth managers over the next decade? Will success be driven primarily by investment performance, access to private markets, technology or the quality of client relationships? I mean, I know we always come down on this, don't we?

[John Stepek]

Obviously investment returns, if you can do it, but far more, I think by far the more important thing is navigating regulation and government changes over the next. If you're talking about the next decade, then tax is going to be where the biggest, biggest value add I think for almost any wealth advisor will be. And when I say think outside the box, what I mean is somebody will turn around and say to you, well actually the best investment you need right now is a second passport and I know somebody who I can pass you on to. We've already seen a whole load of changes here in the UK in the last couple of years and Britain is not the only country with a deficit and a debt problem. So I think we're going to see an awful lot of government budget changes and that will put a premium on decent tax advice. Completely above board, but I think that's where they'll be.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And again that comes back to hyper personalization, doesn't it? The idea that the whole portfolio, not just the investment portfolio but the entire holistic portfolio of someone's life is understood by the wealth manager and the tax can be fiddled with. Fiddle is not the phrase I'm after.

[John Stepek]

No, it's not fiddled. Optimized.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Optimized.

[John Stepek]

I think that's true. And the thing is about AI can come in as well. It's almost like if you to your GP and they actually have an AI that works and it says, well actually you need to send this guy to, you know, can this specialist or that specialist. I think that's the kind of thing that you want. Well no, I mean that's in my dreams.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Your dream medical world. Back to you on this idea of what will mean success in future investment performance, access to private markets, anything. That's it by the way, but who knows Client experience.

[Jean Damien Marie]

Yeah, we'll concur with John. Actually I'm responsible for the investment business at Barclays, but I'm also responsible for wealth planning and advisories under One team. And I completely agree with you. I think the planning side, the GP work you do at the outset is so important and probably more than ever to your point, the ability to build proper plan, quality plan that you can actually deliver through various segments of clients is where you're going to make a difference. I think the return side will be very important, but the return side has to be fit for purpose for the situation.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And if you've made a mistake and you don't have a tax efficient portfolio, whether you make 6% or 8% in real terms every year is meaningful, correct?

[Jean Damien Marie]

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's not by accident that we've launched this affluent service in the uk which is planning led first and foremost. This is really, really what we think is important. Clearly return will be important, education as well, like time should be on your side. Like this is real competitive advantage. If you have time, it's great, enjoy time and compound.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And that planning has to now really anticipate as well, doesn't it? We do almost nothing in the UK now, except for talk about what tax might go up next and how it might go up and whether it might be indexed or not indexed, and whether the mansion tax is going to be on one and a half million pounds or two million pounds, et cetera, et cetera. Basically our whole conversation. So as a planner, you've got to have a lot of anticipation of what might come away.

[Jean Damien Marie]

Absolutely. And this is where you actually get into real deep conversation with clients. Like I sit in a few conversations like this on wealth planning, wealth advisor, and it's really, you know, people open up, you actually understand the whole family, all the dynamics, all the beliefs as well, like the values for next gen, et cetera. And I think it's really, really important. Then we can debate about Bitcoin, ETF, etc. But like, that plan at the very beginning is so important. I think this is where you're going to make a difference. And again, AI will allow us to deliver that kind of a high touch diagnostic at much higher sc.

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[Maren Sumset Webb]

As wealth management evolves to serve the next gen of clients, how do you see banks, expectations of third party data providers and technology partners changing? What will define a successful partnership going forward?

[Jean Damien Marie]

It's a very good question. I think the tech infrastructure is really at the heart of our thinking both from a client experience side and a resilience side.

[IBM Representative]

Right.

[Jean Damien Marie]

It's an important topic those days. We really want to create the best architecture we can to deliver great cx. We will not build everything ourselves for sure. We're really happy to just partner with people people so they can understand us. We're going to own already the one of the most critical part of the equation which is the data point, the data set, right? It's going to be in the bank. We'll be more than happy. If you want to benefit from this ecosystem where people are doing the watch on reg development to do things you need to do before you actually give an advice and sometimes there's a lot of paper involved in this. It's moving, it's changing, it's changing now as we speak, we're very open minded actually to partner with people. I guess question will be how many? It's probably a question like in this world where you really want to be on top of your architecture security, how many partners can we have in terms of really understanding each other very well.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And also you have to fully understand how they are using new technology, how they are using AI 100%. And suddenly you need to have a lot more oversight of the inside of every provider.

[Jean Damien Marie]

We've been involved for a very long time in supporting Fintech, for instance. So we want to strike the right balance between innovation but also like scaling resilience, so to speak.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, couple more quick ones. Oh well, firms using data well enough to understand client behavior, preferences and portfolio needs. Maybe not yet, but soon will be.

[Jean Damien Marie]

In the UK we're working very hard on the launching targeted support service, right. Gbr. It's a large part of that, the understanding of the client behavior across all dimensions of the touch points they have with the bank across actually everything is a very big part. So it's actually happening fast, I think. And it's actually a very interesting discussion in terms of how far you go and what do you need to plan for knowing what you know on the client.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Charlie, we've talked about, we've done the whole discussion is crypto in asset classes and asset classes, Bitcoin in that class. But really to start with Bitcoin, if you're constructing a portfolio and we talk about digital assets, what else is in there with putting other cryptocurrencies in that.

What's.

Yeah, into this one of the sort

[Charlie Morris]

of credible things that have survived the last decade of innovation and all the rest of it. You've basically got Bitcoin as the, the only sort of store of value, the sort of a digital gold proxy, as it were. Then you've got the, what they call the layer ones, basically the, the things that you can transfer assets with. You've got Ethereum, Solana and Near and things like that. And they're the home for stablecoins and in many people's eyes, the future of markets generally. Because I think a lot of the people in the financial services industry who are pro crypto believe that stock exchanges and bond exchanges will end up using that kind of infrastructure. And so they're very real tech businesses, as it were. And I think the third category really the exchanges themselves, things like Binance and there are some other weird and wacky ones and there's lots of other stuff, but it hasn't really got to scale or proven itself. So those are the things that are coming through. But the fascinating bits I said earlier, just as the above ground supply of gold is the vast majority of the tradable value of all the commodity markets, the above ground supply of oil is actually quite small. Use a lot of oil, but it's not really there as an asset. Commodities are overwhelmed by gold in investable terms, just as bitcoin overwhelms digital as an investable asset. And they're connected. They're all connected. So I think that's the interesting point.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Convinced yet?

[Jean Damien Marie]

Working on it. I think for us, the tokenization part of it is really important. I think we'll see so many more clients coming and asking for us to onboard an asset somewhere that's been tokenized somewhere else. We need to be able to do that.

[Charlie Morris]

But what you should do is do what everyone else does in the financial services industry and say, say I love blockchain, but I don't like crypto.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And that is, that is the perfect place to end. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, John. Charlie thank you. JD that was, that was very interesting. And I look forward to every private bank portfolio having, what was it, 8 and a half percent of crypto in it?

[Charlie Morris]

Bitcoin, it was 6%. Bitcoin. It was 8% gold, you said.

[Jean Damien Marie]

Yes, indeed.

[Charlie Morris]

But bold is the alternative, of course.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this week's Marion Talks yous Money. If you like our show, rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to follow me and John on X or Twitter marionsw and John underscorestefek. This episode was produced by Sama Saadi and Moses Andam Sound designed by Blake Maples and Aaron Casper. Questions and comments on this show and all our shows are always welcome. Our show email is merrinmoneylumberg.net.

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