(14 October 2026 – United States) Morgan Stanley is taking a measured approach to the risks and opportunities associated with the AI ecosystem, participating as a lender of capital for the build-out and deploying the technology internally as a means to achieve greater scale, productivity and efficiency.
The group is open to AI tools and products but remains firmly focused on being a trusted advisor to its clients including in wealth management. The global investment bank is leaning heavily into its role as an advisor whose knowledge and expertise, in areas such as wealth management, would be hard to replicate with an AI agent.
“It’s a people business. While AI can do a lot of the early work in preparing clients to make certain financial decisions, it ultimately comes down to, do I trust my financial advisor?” commented Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick during the firm’s third-quarter earnings call.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon urged governments and technology firms to establish stronger safeguards to protect against dangers such as credit risks and rogue AI bots while JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum warned that the rise of AI agents could intensify competition for deposits and customer relationships while
“It’s going to be interesting to see how AI develops and what we ourselves offer there at some point, but when you take a really big step back from a competitive position, I think we really like our hand in no small part because of the multiple decades of investment in the branch network, the value proposition and the trust that customers have in us” Barnum commented.