By: Levi Folk, Founder of Data Front

Publish Date: March 27, 2025

Investment managers facing increased pressure to quickly deliver accurate and compelling reports on mutual funds and ETF are running up against manual processes, compliance bottlenecks and technical challenges that can be solved with generative artificial intelligence.

If you're a product marketer, digital marketer, or part of a sales team in financial services, you've likely experienced this firsthand: challenges that can lead to reporting errors causing reputational risk and even regulatory fines. 

Generative AI has the potential to be transformative for asset managers who are overwhelmed by manual processes and regulatory burdens. According to McKinsey & Company, by 2030, Gen AI could enable automation of up to 70% of business activities, adding trillions of dollars in value to the global economy.

Data Front has identified several key areas where AI can make a substantial difference to current processes: 

1. Compliance
2. Text generation and translation
3. Search (user interface replacement)

Why Financial Institutions Need an AI-Powered Approach to Fund Data

Current tools for interacting with your reporting data require expert knowledge and utilize rigid user interfaces. Therefore, they’re limiting. They require extensive training and slow down your marketing, sales, and product teams. Because these systems aren’t user-friendly, they make quick decisions almost impossible.

In contrast, AI can offer an open-ended approach to interacting with your data that is conversational in nature and thus more intuitive than traditional applications. AI can empower sales and marketing teams by offering quick access to reporting data without requiring technical expertise. 

Similarly, clients will benefit from an AI approach to search rather than current rigid search user interfaces which make assumptions about how users want to interact with your mutual fund and ETF reports.

In contrast, using AI, clients can ask questions about the underlying reports and data that may not be anticipated by current user interfaces.

Conversational AI Simplifies Search

Generative AI lets you interact with your reporting data using everyday language. 

Imagine asking, "Which funds are managed by Manager X?" Instead of navigating tricky user interfaces and complicated menus, an AI chat can quickly provide the information you need. With this simple, natural approach, non-technical users can quickly search data without advanced systems knowledge.

In the near future, you might even ask the AI to make data edits, which further reduces your workload.

This conversational interface makes data easy to access for everyone on your team, from marketing to sales. Data requests become simple, fast, and straightforward, helping your teams work smarter, not harder.

How Generative AI Works in the Real World

Integrating AI into your workflow can be a major productivity tool. In fact, can AI translate to an average productivity gain of 20%, according to Bain & Company.

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For marketing and sales, AI can assist in creating sales and marketing reports much faster.  For example, if you need a report on strategies that work best during market downturns, then AI can build it in minutes. It automatically picks the right data and creates a clear, effective report. You can respond quickly to market changes without spending days gathering and organizing information.

Generate Reporting Content and Translate for Global Markets

Marketing and regulatory reporting require tremendous resources to update reports on time monthly and quarterly. The challenge is turning data into reports which often require detailed write-ups by fund managers and other stakeholders. 

AI could enable marketing and compliance to break free from the cycle of updates completed only for the next round of updates to begin. By tapping into a centralized database of reporting data, generative AI can be trained to write and translate the reports in minutes rather than the hours and days it takes humans. 

For financial institutions who operate globally, clear and accurate translations are very important. But beyond simple translations, translating for different markets requires marketers to be mindful of local dialects.

Generative AI can create fast and accurate translations specifically for financial content. This is especially helpful if your organization works in multiple regions like Europe, the United States and Canada. 

AI ensures your translations meet local standards, making it easier and faster for you to expand into new markets. 

Improve Compliance and Reduce Risks

Staying compliant with regulations is critical but is very time-consuming. Compliance teams are drowning in work due to increasing regulations, and the heavy burden and cost of compliance is an obvious area where generative AI can be applied. 

AI helps by automatically checking your documents against regulations. It ensures documents are nearly perfect before human review, reducing errors, cutting down on revisions, and speeding up approvals. 

For example, with new regulations like the European Accessibility Act (EAA), documents need to meet specific accessibility standards. Generative AI can scan these documents quickly and confirm if they comply with EAA requirements, such as proper tagging for screen readers or accessible document formatting. 

AI also helps reduce mistakes by automatically checking data for accuracy. This means fewer errors, less time spent double-checking, and greater confidence in your reports.

How to Start Using Generative AI

Getting started with generative AI doesn't have to be difficult. 

First, review your current data processes and prepare your mutual fund and ETF data to be AI-ready.

We suggest starting small with pilot programs focusing on simple, conversational data queries. Use these pilots to get feedback, refine your methods, and gradually expand AI features. It's also essential to train your teams on how to use AI. 

Explain the benefits clearly, provide practical examples, and address concerns early. This will make adopting AI smoother and more successful.

Key Steps to Remember

To make your transition to AI easier:

• Centralize your reporting data in the cloud.
• Train your teams, focusing on clear and simple use cases.
• Start with small pilot projects to measure benefits and gain confidence.

Are You Ready For AI?

Generative AI is changing the game for mutual fund and ETF reporting. It simplifies how you interact with data, speeds up the creation of powerful sales and marketing materials, and improves compliance accuracy. 

By embracing AI today, you can stay ahead and make your team's job easier, smarter, and more efficient.

At Data Front, we're committed to leading this exciting change, and we invite you to join us on this innovative journey.