THE WAY FORWARD
Modern Investment Management Tech & the Direction of Travel for Platform-as-a-Service
Aladdin Tech Forces
ENTERING THE COPILOT ERA
REALIZING
THE POTENTIAL
OF THE CLOUD
ON THE NATURE OF DATA.
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF DIGITAL ASSETS.
REMAPPING THE CLIENT JOURNEY
BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR INNOVATION
POST-SCRIPT
COMPONENT
TOPIC
AUTHOR(S)
Foreword
The Moment
Lance Braunstein
Article I
GenAI
Syril Smith & Andrae Allen
Article II
Cloud
Randy Fradin & Eli Hamburger
Article III
Data
Diwakar Goel & David Woodhead
Article IV
Digital Assets
Robert Mitchnick & Scott Moskowitz
Article V
Client Journey
Scott Roen & Yael Alpert
Article VI
Tech Debt
Tayo Ibikunle & Adam Schlesinger
Post-Script
Experience, Trust & Stability
Nirmitee Shah
Design: Mike KellyEditor-in-Chief: Mark Ransom DaySenior Editor: Meenal VamburkarTechnical Writing Team: George Gonzalez, Mimi NarbonneCreative Team: Bridget Odukoya, Sergio Velez, Lisa Atkinson, Carmen Garcia, Athena Belford, Yasmeen Audi
Quick Note: The opinions expressed are those of our Aladdin business leaders as of March 2024 and are subject to change.
By Lance Braunstein, Head of Aladdin Engineering
“The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown.” - Albert Einstein
In 2017, the seminal paper on transformer models, Attention is All You Need, was published amongst a limited class of engineers and developers without much fanfare—despite its prescience—hinting at a sleeping giant that would (unbeknownst to many) dramatically awaken and not only rearchitect modern engineering but change modern life as we know it.
Seven years later, it’s clear that much of the world was not, in fact, paying attention. And it’s not that folks weren’t interested in the promise of artificial intelligence. (AI and machine learning have been in market for decades.) It was the suddenness of all that promise breaking out of theory and becoming extremely real with a speed and fury that no one had predicted.
This moment was unknown to all of us.
As we march forward into the 4th industrial revolution—one that is built on cloud, AI, blockchain, and robotics—it’s clear the future holds many more unknowns.
The way forward, though, is in intentionally and responsibly realizing the potential of these technologies (and how they interact with each other and within the systems where they’re embedded) like blockchain’s continued disruption across exchanges of value or enabling more advanced analytics and automation through data and cloud. Wherever we go with these tools, it’s clear that we’re going to work and interact differently. But without full clarity on exactly how (yet).
In this collection of observations and ideas from some of our senior-most product and engineering leads, we wanted to share with you—our clients, our partners, and our peers—how we see this moment unfolding.
The world is changing. Our lives are changing.
But the auguries of an imminent “Skynet” are overblown compared to the potential before us. We think that there is an opportunity to harness all of these technology forces. Technology will empower colleagues, clients, and all investors in helping more and more people achieve financial well-being.
And with that, let’s begin our discussion into the predictable unknown.