00:00So what's the question you get most when it comes to retirement planning?
00:03Retirement planning. How much do I need to retire? Actually, the more important question is,
00:08how can I save enough to fund the income and the life I want? So the biggest challenge is
00:13people can't figure out how to do the math, right? And how should we expect them to?
00:17How? Well, I was going to say, can't, you know, we can't help us with the math, right?
00:23But the math is so difficult because we have no idea how much things are going to cost in the
00:26future. And you don't know how long you're going to live. So trying to do a math equation with the
00:30unknown of how long am I going to live? How much will things cost in the future? What are health
00:35expenses going to be? What about my family? Maybe I need to help my family. Will there even be a
00:40world
00:40because of AI and there's going to be an apocalypse? Climate change. I'm actually not joking. I had
00:45that conversation with a friend of mine earlier today. He's like deeply concerned about this AI
00:49stuff. Yeah. Are you? So I think, look, there are many conversations that we can have about AI.
00:55Let me bring it to this industry. We'll take it away from society for a second. I think AI is
01:02a way
01:02to help financial advisors, the humans that are serving people all over this country and beyond.
01:08I think it's a way to help them become more effective and more efficient, right? Advisors are
01:14spending so much time doing things that are more administrative in nature. And if you could free up
01:18that time and instead talk to your clients and really understand their life situations and give them
01:24holistic advice across their entire financial life, help them live the life they want to live,
01:29then I think that's a really powerful proposition.
01:32So, okay. Do you have- I do. I have a follow-up.
01:35Mr. Doomsday, here we go. I had a feeling he had a little bit-
01:38Well, I do because yesterday I'm on the plane and right at noon, this story crosses on the
01:44Bloomberg terminal about Anthropic deepening its finance industry ties with BlackRock and Vanguard.
01:48You're quoted in that story. We have Anthropic representatives here at Future Proof today.
01:55In fact, Peter Nolan, head of asset and wealth management at Anthropic is here.
01:58What is the deepening engagement that BlackRock is doing with Anthropic?
02:02Like what are you guys doing and what are they doing for you?
02:05Yeah. So I'll start with what we're doing.
02:09You know, for BlackRock, this is a story about outsourcing, right?
02:12It's about the biggest trend we see in the wealth management industry is financial advisors
02:16need help building better portfolios or even just outsourcing the portfolio management to asset
02:23managers they really trust. And so if you think about for BlackRock, I mean, we work with 55,000
02:29advisors who today ask us to build custom portfolios for them. They're using our asset allocation IP so
02:36that they can build these portfolios for their clients, whether it's customized portfolios or just
02:39strategic asset allocation. We have 300 billion in assets that we manage on behalf of our advisors
02:46clients in models and custom model solutions. And the reason advisors are doing this is because one,
02:52the capital markets are just, they're expanding. They're getting more complex and they need trusted
02:56partners who can actually figure out how to put the pieces together and help them customize it and
03:01meet the outcomes their clients want. And then the second piece is I need time. If I'm an advisor,
03:06I'm under a capacity crisis, right? I don't have time to figure out all of these custom solutions
03:11for my client. If I could find a partner like BlackRock who does this and is expert in doing so
03:16and is a leader in doing so, then that saves me time and allows me to spend time with my
03:20clients.
03:21What does customization mean then? Everybody gets their own portfolio, like requirements,
03:25a code, like what is that? What does it really mean?
03:28It could mean, it could mean everyone gets their own. It could mean that you have,
03:32if you're an advisor, you have a certain type of client set. Maybe it's a high net worth or an
03:36ultra high net worth client that has tax needs, after tax management needs. Maybe they have
03:41concentrated stock and they need solutions to help them manage out of that concentrated stock.
03:46Maybe they want access to private markets. So if you think about it, it's putting it all
03:50together in a portfolio. It's why BlackRock acquired Appirio, direct indexing a few years ago,
03:55SpiderRock option overlays, HPS for private credit, GIP for infrastructure, so that we can build this
04:01portfolio of public-private, index active, tax management, option overlays, and deliver that
04:06through our advisors to their clients. On the AI side of it, the question that I think a lot of
04:12people are asking, does it remove any humans from the equation and make companies more productive
04:17because it has to pay fewer humans to do the work? Well, look, I think there's a lot of conversation
04:22around the role of AI in certain sectors, in certain functions. It's well beyond financial services.
04:29You know, for me, I look at my own experience with my AI, and the way I use AI is
04:34to get
04:36information, to get more context, maybe to prepare myself for a meeting or prepare myself for
04:41going to visit my doctor. When I go to the doctor, I ask AI, what are some questions I should
04:46ask?
04:46AI is not replacing my doctor, right? I'm going to the doctor, but now I'm more informed. I feel like
04:51I have a bit more confidence to go have that conversation. That's what I think AI can do.
04:55I was talking to some friends recently, Carol, a friend specifically. You know who you are?
05:00Chat GPT for parenting advice. He's like typing in, you know, the things that are challenging with
05:06his kids. And he said it was super helpful. I have to say, I'm kind of blown away by it
05:11when
05:11you do ask it questions for a problem and what it can come back at. And we're just scratching,
05:14again, reminder, we just scratched the surface with this stuff. Like we're not, you know.
05:17But Jamie, do you see kind of a tiered process again? Like, you know, we've gone through as a
05:22world, the robo-advisors. I know they hate that phrase. But, you know, can you have folks
05:27who are younger, maybe not as much, you know, in terms of net worth and that you can create
05:33customization, but you don't necessarily have a person? Like, is that part of it?
05:36Look, I think there's people who are investing by themselves or through technology platforms
05:42today.
05:42Right. They are.
05:43So, of course, there will be people doing that. Of course, AI may make that even better.
05:48What our job is as an industry is to make sure that people are actually getting the right
05:53information, right, from trusted sources. And that's why BlackRock is so vocal about making
05:59sure that our portfolio intelligence is actually powering a lot of those tools. It's not just
06:04about anthropic, right? We're powering many technology platforms. We want to be wherever
06:09advisors are and wherever advisors are building portfolios. And so that's what we're doing.
06:14Our value to the industry is to help people build better portfolios and manage portfolios
06:19on their half.
06:20I mean, I think I'm just thinking back to the conversation. Like last time we spoke with
06:24you, the entire world has changed since then. Like that is what's wild to me about this.
06:29Well, and if you think about it, like this is so well-timed to be here because it's not
06:33just one trend or one technology, right? You think about wealth creation and wealth transfer.
06:38You think about demographics and the new face of investors. You think about people living
06:44longer and how do you plan for that? You think about the expanding capital markets. I mean,
06:47all of these things together are causing, in some ways, a massive reinvention cycle for
06:53our industry. And that's what we're here for.
06:55Biggest challenge and biggest risk, actually. That's what I've been asking everybody. Got
06:59about 15 seconds.
07:01Biggest challenge is helping people, especially end customers, look through the noise and the
07:08headlines. Like this is about long-term investing, right? This is about building portfolios for
07:13the future, not reacting to every headline.
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