Robo-Advisers Are Coming to Consulting and Corporate Strategy

Articles Written by AIMatters
Written By Taylor Watase

Harvard Business Review | January 12, 2018
By Thomas H. Davenport, Barry Libert and Megan Beck

Does a robot manage your money? For many of us, the answer is yes. Online and algorithmic investment and financial advice is easy to come by these days, usually under the moniker of “robo- advisor.” Startups such as Wealthfront, Personal Capital, and Betterment launched robo-advisors as industry disruptors, and incumbents, such as Schwab’s (Intelligent Advisor), Vanguard (Personal Advisor Services), Morgan Stanley and BlackRock have joined the fray with their own hybrid machine/advisor solutions. It’s clear that robo-advisors and AI play an important and growing role in the financial services industry, but a question remains. Will robo-advisors disrupt corporate capital allocation the same way they have personal capital allocation? And, will they shake up the trillion- dollar corporate consulting and advisory industry?

Robo-advisors, which were introduced in 2008, are steadily eating up market share from their human counterparts much the way that Amazon and Netflix have taken share from Walmart and Regal Cinemas.

Taylor Watase
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