61% of board directors focus on developing AI: study

Ocorian, a market leader in regulation and compliance services for funds, corporates, capital markets and private clients, conducted an international study on the view of artificial intelligence (AI) with leading firms.

The global study included 301 senior executives, including 51 board directors, of leading firms with annual turnover of more than US$250 million and based in the UK, continental Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Ocorian conducted a global study with leading firms on their view of AI. (Source: Ocorian)

Results show intensified focus on AI

On the development of AI for the respondents’ respective sector, the study results found that 61% of board directors are very focused on this aspect while 33% are quite focused. Only 6% are not focused or do not have a view.

A majority of respondents (94%) say AI will be important to the success of their company over the next five years, including 53% who believe AI will be very important to how their fund performs.

These can be partly explained by the success of projects that firms have run with AI. 41% of firms have seen strong results from tests, and the same number say the results have been quite strong.

Only 14% say projects have delivered average results while the remaining 4% do not express a view or said they had not at least tested AI.

The study also found that “compliance and regulation” is regarded as the area most likely to provide a role for the use of AI, with “identifying and reviewing investments” ranks as the second.

“Administration, client servicing and recruitment” is also seen as important for the use of AI. Relatively low number of respondents rank “sales and marketing” as area where AI can play a major role.

For budget, 86% of board directors respond their budgets for AI will increase over the next two years, with 37% predicting a dramatic increase in budgets.

Conclusion and prediction

Alternative fund managers are shifting from an experimentation period after achieving success with pilots to larger scale adoption for real use, including cases across investment operations, compliance and managing risks.

“It is clear that generative AI has transformative potential for productivity, ways of working and economy as a whole. Given the continued investment into AI globally, we can expect more AI products to hit the market,” concluded Yegor Lanovenko, Co-Head of Fund Services.