Shaping the future of wealth management

The market is increasingly pricing marketplace platforms as structurally vulnerable to generative and agentic AI, on the assumption that conversational interfaces will disintermediate consumer facing marketplaces. We believe this thesis misunderstands where economic value resides in these businesses and overstates AI’s capacity to disrupt entrenched consumer behaviour and have attached a note discussing these views. In this article we discuss the outlook and impacts to portfolio positioning.

Recent market weakness in consumer marketplace platforms reflects growing concern that generative and agentic AI will disrupt established business models. We believe this concern overstates the near to medium term risk. Evidence to date suggests AI has not materially altered consumer behaviour in high stakes transactions, where habit, trust and network effects remain powerful anchors. Rather than displacing incumbents, AI is more likely to be absorbed into existing platforms, improving efficiency and reinforcing structural advantages.

The current investment environment is increasingly defined by persistent geopolitical risk, a highly capital intensive artificial intelligence (AI) investment cycle, and some signs of stress within private markets. While we believe recession risks remain contained in the base case outlook, the balance of risks has shifted toward more pronounced stagflationary dynamics. In this article, we discuss the key considerations for investors and their portfolios.