Morgan Stanley plans to allow clients' autonomous, artificial-intelligence-based agents to access its ShareWorks and Equity Edge stock-administration platforms directly, the CNBC reported. The change will let AI agents query data and analyses from those systems without using the interfaces designed for human users.
How it will work in practice
Mark Mitchell, product lead for Morgan Stanley at Work, said corporate clients may stop logging into these platforms themselves and instead interact with the bank's systems via agent-based AI tools running on their workstations. The firm has provided early access to some clients and intends to expand the capability to all of its 3,400 corporate partners next year.
Competitors and internal use
Competitors such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs already use in-house AI agents for functions including code-writing, but they have not announced plans to open their systems to external agents. Morgan Stanley's move specifically targets integration with external, client-side AI agents.
The bank also uses agent-based AI internally to scale services — for example customer support, administration, and wealth-management sales channels — without hiring thousands of additional employees.
Strategic rationale
What might seem like a dry area — administration of stock-based compensation programs — has become a strategic client-acquisition channel for Morgan Stanley's wealth-management business. The division formed through the 2019 acquisition of Solium Capital and the 2020 acquisition of E-Trade now serves nearly half of S&P 500 companies and eight of the ten largest unicorn startups. The strategy is to convert employees who receive stock-based compensation into private-banking or advisory clients as their wealth grows.
In April, company executives reported roughly $1.2 trillion of client assets acquired through this workplace channel, illustrating the business's importance to Morgan Stanley's wealth franchise.
Corporate clients, particularly fast-growing technology and biotechnology firms, are drawn to the AI offering because they want to run increasingly complex equity programs without enlarging their HR teams. AI agents can carry out many of these administrative tasks without human intervention.
Closing note
By enabling direct connections between bank systems and client-side AI agents, Morgan Stanley is adopting a new approach to integrating AI into financial services. Rolling the capability out to all 3,400 corporate partners next year would mark a significant step in the firm's wealth-management strategy.
The content above does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation.
