Personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) like Alexa and Siri are poised to develop in ways we find hard to imagine. Kaul says it will be the single biggest change we will see in society.
Your PDA will be tailored to you and will understand your preferences and desires, make your travel arrangements, book your dining reservations, schedule your kids’ activities, help you remember when to pay the bills (then pay them for you), and help you do everything in your life.
In doing that, the PDA is going to collect so much data on you that you could use it to give people permission to use that data, including your wealth manager, in order to give you better advice in your life and for your portfolio.
Younger investors question the value of wealth managers
Kaul highlighted how sceptical younger investors are about wealth managers and the value they offer. These clients are looking at the value of a portfolio differently.
In particular they want to generate non-financial returns as well as financial ones. They want to be able to measure the carbon impact of their investment portfolio and how that is changing over time, or track the increase in the diversity of board representation of the companies in their portfolio.
Where engagement is really surging among younger generations is in ‘neo-brokers’ – that is, online brokers that cater to a social style of investing. The vast majority of millennials and Gen Z get their information from social media; they want gamification and social sharing and participation.
Taylor Swift
Kaul talked about tokenisation, a tech and product wrapper that allows assets to be made programmable.
As an example, she referenced how a Taylor Swift royalty pool could give a fan 24-hour advance notice on buying tickets to her concerts, and at those concerts they could get free concessions, and once a year get to join a special private chat with Swift herself.
Kaul suggests this could be something advisers can run alongside more traditional investment – how cool is that?
Kaul's key point is that, in the near future, people will want their portfolio to do more than deliver financial returns. They will want it to deliver against their identity and values. It is about more than money, it is about owning what you love – like the Swifties.
It is worth looking in detail at Kaul's presentation (you can find it in our event report here) and what the other speakers had to say, because understanding how the future could look will help you to shape it.
Heather Hopkins is managing director of NextWealth
