But the depth of that adoption tells a more complicated story. Only 26% deploy AI across multiple stages of the process. Most confine it to idea generation, cited by 69%, and initial product design at 61%, leaving later-stage functions largely untouched.
For firms that have yet to move beyond exploration, compliance concerns and lack of internal expertise each ranked as barriers among 53% of those respondents, while questions about the accuracy and transparency of AI outputs followed at 50%.
The industry is also divided on whether AI belongs in go-to-market messaging. Sixty-three percent believe AI use should feature in how products are communicated externally. Those opposed (concentrated in European markets) worry the signal reads as experimentation rather than expertise.
Scale is the defining challenge
The study’s most pointed finding may be this: 71% of asset managers say it is increasingly difficult to break through in a crowded market, and 66% say many new product innovations struggle to accumulate meaningful assets. The bottleneck, the data suggests, sits less in product design and more in brand, distribution, and the broader go-to-market infrastructure behind it.
Brand credibility and recognition ranked as the leading competitive differentiator globally, cited by 55% of respondents, ahead of unique product design at 46%, pricing at 42%, and sales distribution capability, also at 42%.