AI is forcing adaptation across industries, and the asset management sector is no exception. Financial professionals face threats of automation through the increased popularity of robo competitors as well as distinct AI-powered insights that the broader financial services industry has begun to leverage. March 2025, for example, saw the debut of Robinhood Cortex, the fintech’s AI-powered investing assistant that provides real-time analysis and insights to help retail investors navigate the markets. August 2025 additionally saw the introduction of eToro’s AI companion, Tori, which offers users personalized guidance, platform navigation and educational support through natural conversation.
What does this all mean? While good for investors, these tools are ultimately broadening access to analysis that previously required professional advice, putting advisors’ value propositions at stake. This raises a critical question for asset managers: How can they equip advisors to defend their distinct advantages against algorithmic competitors?
Asset managers look to education to compete with AI
Notably, asset managers have increasingly turned to education as the answer, recognizing their power to keep financial advisors competitive by helping them deepen their expertise and strengthen client relationships. In the past year, Corporate Insight has observed an evolution in asset management websites, extending beyond product research capabilities and portfolio tools to prioritize financial planning resources that can help reinforce advisors’ human advantage. Firms namely do so through increased availability of practice management content as well as specialized educational and planning resources.
Particularly, firms have recognized the need for education on more complex product types, like model portfolios and SMAs, to encourage their adoption and, in the process, help advisors build expertise in areas where human judgment still holds distinct advantages.
Despite this educational expansion, coverage of alternative investments stands out as being comparatively limited, even as the asset class represents a key area where investors still depend on human guidance to navigate complexities that AI tools cannot assess to the same degree; this is due to factors like limited standardized data and the need for relationship-based advice.
In fact, a recent CI survey found that while 74% of alternative-using respondents were more likely to include alternatives in client portfolios than they were five years ago, 25% rated educational resources for the asset class as Fair, representing the lowest overall resource satisfaction rate of any investment type in the survey.
CI’s Asset Management team recently published a report examining alternatives positioning and resources across the advisor-facing websites of 15 firms in the Asset Management Monitor – Advisor coverage set, which produced a similar finding.
Below is a preview of this finding—along with one other—from this report:
Namely, the Alternatives Positioning and Resources report determined that nearly half of coverage set firms failed to provide the fundamental alternatives education needed to strengthen advisor confidence and guide allocation decisions. More specifically, 47% of firms provided basic education for advisors unfamiliar with the asset class, while just 53% addressed the critical question of how to use alternatives in portfolios. Rather, firms appeared to cater more strongly to those with an existing foundation in the asset class, commonly providing content necessitating prior knowledge, including timely market insights (87%) and category-specific education (80%) like deep dives into digital assets, for example.
As alternative investments are more complex than customary mutual funds and ETFs, they require nuanced judgement; however, without access to more introductory resources on the asset class, advisors may struggle to effectively allocate client funds to alternative investments, revealing a key opportunity for asset managers to enhance such educational content to cater to all experience levels. Doing so can not only sustain loyalty and influence allocation decisions but also establish asset managers as valuable partners for differentiating advisors’ services to investors.
Franklin Templeton, for example, stands out with its robust Alternatives by Franklin Templeton microsite. Basic resources are available across virtually every page of the microsite, although content like its Knowledge Hub help the firm stand out, with clear educational pathways split into Getting Started, Building Portfolios and Finding Opportunities sections. Here, advisors can find fundamental explanations of different types of alternatives, specific portfolio construction techniques and market opportunities for those with an already-established knowledge of the asset class.
In line with this, the report additionally observed a possible basis for such a lack of foundational alternatives information. Rather than offer vital background details into the primary asset class, firms align educational content with the types of sub-sets of alternatives directly available within their proprietary lineups; more specifically, the report found that 80% of asset managers provide category-specific educational content in the alternatives space, far surpassing the availability of more elementary resources.
In doing so, asset managers seemingly aim to demonstrate their own specialized expertise within alternative sub-sets—falling in line with their individual business strategies—working subtly to push product adoption through advisors’ own nuanced understanding of firm offerings. Firms most commonly provide educational content on private credit (83%), mirroring the most common type of alternative offered by the report’s coverage set.
While Invesco, for example, provides a main Alternatives hub page, it funnels advisors accordingly to category-specific pages—like Real Estate and Private Credit—based on its own lineup, offering in-depth educational content through potential benefits, FAQs and related insights. Those already with a foundational knowledge of such alternative categorizations may enjoy the firm’s Alternatives Playbook page which includes dedicated market outlooks for various sub-sets within the asset class, along with suggested allocations.
So, why bring up alternatives?
While the alternatives asset class is but one part of this overarching AI conversation, like technology, it serves as a look into the future of the investment landscape. Just as AI will grow wider in availability and popularity, alternatives face a similar trajectory, with global AUM expected to spike to over $29 trillion by 2029.
Alternatives thus represent an underlying opportunity for asset managers to make up for gaps in educational resources that help advisors stay competitive.
As AI only grows in sophistication, it will become increasingly important for advisors to continue to differentiate their businesses from automation. While asset managers play a key role in curating such value propositions now through financial planning and educational resources, the effectiveness of this strategy hinges on fully addressing investment topics and products that reflect the current and future interests of clients.
In doing so, firms can simultaneously help advisors maintain an edge while positioning asset managers as valuable partners in an ever-increasing competitive environment.
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Deirdre Kelshaw
Deirdre Kelshaw is an analyst on CI's asset management team.