Morgan Stanley to Launch AI-Powered Assistant for Financial Advisers

Morgan Stanley will launch an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant for financial advisers and their support staff Monday (Sept. 18).

The investment bank and wealth management firm’s new tool, the AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant, facilitates access to 100,000 research reports and documents, CNBC reported Monday, citing a company memo.

Reached for comment by PYMNTS, a Morgan Stanley spokesperson confirmed the report.

According to the CNBC report, Morgan Stanley Co-President Andy Saperstein said in the memo: “Financial advisers will always be the center of Morgan Stanley wealth management’s universe. We also believe that generative AI will revolutionize client interactions, bringing new efficiencies to adviser practices, and ultimately help free up time to do what you do best: serve your clients.”

Morgan Stanley’s assistant is a bespoke solution based on OpenAI’s GPT-4, according to the report.

By providing financial advisers with quick access to the bank’s extensive database of research reports and documents, the AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant will save advisers and customer service employees time in addressing queries related to markets, recommendations and internal processes, the report said. This will allow advisers to dedicate more time and attention to engaging with their clients.

Adopting OpenAI’s software required a fundamentally different approach compared to previous technology efforts, per the report. OpenAI’s ChatGPT utilizes large language models (LLMs) to generate human-like responses to questions. Instead of traditional coding methods, the system learns what constitutes a “good” response by analyzing examples provided to it. This enables the AI to apply reasoning and logic similar to that of a human, resulting in more accurate and contextually relevant answers.

The AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant is just the beginning of Morgan Stanley’s plans for generative AI solutions, according to the report. The bank is currently piloting another tool called Debrief, which automatically summarizes the content of client meetings and generates follow-up emails.

Morgan Stanley announced in March that it was testing an OpenAI-powered chatbot to enable its 16,000 financial advisers to sift through internal research data for relevant information.

“You essentially have the knowledge of the most knowledgeable person in Wealth Management — instantly,” Jeff McMillan, head of analytics, data and innovation for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said at the time. “We believe that is a transformative capability for our company.”