Webinar Key Insights – Wealth AI in Europe

At BridgeWise, we stand at the intersection of two rapidly evolving industries. On one hand, the investment space has seen a revolution with the rise of retail investors and platforms, bringing a rapid surge in activity to the industry. On the other hand is the rise of AI and the impact it is having on the capital markets. Together, wealth AI is changing the way we all think about the future of investing.

These developments affect markets differently across the globe, and Europe is a prime example of this with the continent seeing its own unique pace of adoption of emerging trends and technologies and a regulatory environment that presents its own particular challenges to financial platforms.

To explore this further, we brought together leaders from European financial institutions in the latest installment of our webinar series. During the session, Wealth AI in Europe: Where Compliance Meets the Neo Investor, we discussed how AI is powering new investor experiences and the balance European platforms must strike between regulation and innovation.

The webinar featured BridgeWise CBO Dor Eligula, alongside Arjeta Haskaj, Head of Product Strategy at Swissquote and Anna Roth, Senior Equities Product Manager at SIX Swiss Exchange. Keep reading for key insights from the session or watch the full recording below.

Trust is Key for Wealth AI in Europe

Arjeta Haskaj opened the discussion by focusing on AI and how it offers retail investors expanded capabilities, while requiring caution to ensure trust, data privacy, and regulatory compliance:

“With AI, retail investors will have more and more access to things that before were only for institutional investors. However, there is a catch with AI. It is important that the investor uses the AI carefully. There is one big fundamental point, which is trust and privacy.

“When making investment decisions, the investor should use the AI from a trustable source, such as a regulated financial institution, for example, so that he knows that his data is safe and everything he gives to the AI is safe. Another thing that the investors do a lot is they think that the AI can give them the next investment idea that can make them, I don’t know, 300% the day after, so they just ask the AI, ‘Where should I invest?’”

Professional Interest in Retail Flow Driven by Wealth AI

Anna Roth highlighted how AI is fueling a significant rise in retail investor activity, which is increasingly capturing the interest of professional market participants. As this market flow grows, it remains essential for platforms to prioritize best execution standards for retail investors:

“What we’ve seen over the last few years is an increase in retail activity on-exchange and coming through brokers. This may very well be driven by AI, since AI gives easy access to financial information, easy access to understand the different asset classes, or identify what could be the next investment target.

“While we see a lot of retail activity in the market, this is something that sparked interest from the more professional investor side as well, because retail flow is seen as something attractive to the market due to the low impact in trading. So, yes, we see more flow, and we quite like that as a market since we can give access to this very low-impact, market-driven flow to professional investors and institutions.”

Regulation as a Foundation for Wealth AI

Dor spoke about regulation, and how it’s a foundational element of financial innovation rather than an obstacle, serving to build necessary trust in capital markets. By prioritizing transparency and accountability in AI, financial institutions can effectively bridge the gap between powerful new technology and the rigorous standards required to protect investors:

“I’ll start by saying that we believe, and we all have to recognize, that in financial services, regulation is not an obstacle to innovation, but in fact, it’s a foundation that you need to build upon. At the end of the day, it enables trust. That’s at the core of any financial services force, including capital markets.

“Every investment decision, just like Arjeta said, can have a direct impact on someone’s financial well-being, and they need to take responsibility for it, not relying ultimately or 100% on someone else—either human or machine. They have to understand the fundamentals of it. So institutions must ensure that any technology that they deploy, especially in front of clients, is transparent, auditable, traceable, and therefore accountable.

“The challenge is that most generic AI tools were not built for financial institutions because of the reasons I’ve just mentioned. They are incredibly powerful with every new model that is being launched, but they often lack explainability and traceability. That creates a gap between what AI can do and what the actual users, and therefore the financial institutions, expect or can responsibly deploy.”

To discover how BridgeWise and wealth AI can help your platform, sign up for a demo today.