Roman Pfranger, CEO, Neue Bank:

Working in concert: Roman Pfranger. (Image: courtesy)

AI, ETFs, and platforms are taking over tasks that can be standardized: analyzing data, modeling scenarios, reducing costs, implementing portfolios. This is not an attack on advisory — it is liberation from routine. What can be automated, should be automated. Yet genuine advisory begins beyond optimization: AI can optimize portfolios. But it bears no responsibility, knows no family history, and cannot replace trust in difficult moments.

Wealth is more than a portfolio. For entrepreneurial families, it involves the interplay of investments, financing, holdings, and succession across jurisdictions and generations. That demands not only expertise, but relationship: an understanding of people, their goals, their formative experiences, and their family histories. Those who only sell products will be replaced. Those who understand wealth in its full context will remain indispensable. Passivization, too, has its limits: in standard markets, ETFs are strong; in inefficient or specialized segments, active management remains important for managing risk and capturing opportunity.

AI as Co-Pilot

The future does not lie in a binary choice between human and machine. AI is a co-pilot, not an autopilot. It delivers data and discipline. The advisor delivers judgment, context, and accountability. For professionals, this means less routine, more analysis, more creative thinking, and greater client proximity. Personal wealth management has a future — if it combines stability with adaptability: technological excellence in the background, clear conviction and reliable relationships in the foreground.

Read the next page for the statement by Gabriel Brenna, Chairman of the Executive Board, Raiffeisen Schweiz.