Wave 3: The Radical Automation of the Investment Industry

This newsletter is part of The Assetizer, GenTwo's thought leadership platform.

This article is part of a series examining the ideas in Assetization: Inside the Trillion-Dollar Investing Revolution (Wiley, 2026). Read parts one, two and three here. 

In the last two pieces in this series — in which I summarize the key ideas of our new book — I have been laying out our framework for how assetization plays out. We see it happening in three distinct waves. The first is about democratizing access to private and alternative investments. The second is about democratizing the tools for investment product creation and distribution. With those pieces in place, we argue, the conditions are set for a radical automation of the entire investment industry value chain. That is the subject of Wave 3.

Prompt to product

To illustrate what radical automation might look like in practice, the book opens this chapter with a short thought experiment set in an art gallery. An advisor encounters a gallery owner whose collection she thinks could be turned into an investable product. She opens an app. Within seconds, AI agents have researched the artist, assessed viability, structured a product, drafted the term sheet, written the contracts, handled compliance, and prepared marketing materials. The product is issued. The first investor comes in within minutes. We made a short video of this scenario, which you can watch here.

We are explicit in the book that this is a provocation, not a product roadmap. But it is a deliberate one — designed to make a point about the direction of travel.

To explain what makes this plausible, the book reaches for two analogies. The first is 3D printing, which embedded the complexity of manufacturing into a machine accessible to anyone with a desktop. The second, and more resonant, is vibe coding — the use of AI agents to build complete software applications from simple natural language prompts, no coding knowledge required. The question we ask in the book is straightforward: if a non-programmer can tell an AI to build a music app and get working software in minutes, why can't a wealth manager tell an AI to structure a diversified art collection as an investment product and get term sheets, legal documents, compliance checks, and marketing materials just as quickly?

Our thesis is that this will become possible. The modular infrastructure of Wave 2 — the disaggregated, standardized, interoperable value chain — is precisely what makes it inevitable. When each component of the product creation process exists as a digital service, automation of the whole is the next logical step.

Four things automation will change

The chapter makes four specific predictions about what a fully automated financial product lifecycle will mean in practice.

First, advisors and wealth managers will have direct access to product creation tools. Capabilities previously locked inside the product factories of large banks will become available to independent professionals. The barrier to entry for product creation will continue to fall.

Second, investment marketplaces will become open and universal. Distribution, like creation, will be automated — connecting product creators and investors globally, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. The friction between a good idea and a willing investor will approach zero.

Third, everyone can become a seller. This is perhaps the most structurally significant prediction. The distinction between buy side and sell side — which has organized the investment industry for generations — begins to dissolve. Those who were previously only consumers of financial products can become creators and distributors of their own.

Fourth, almost everything can become investible. From art collections to industrial machinery, from intellectual property to local real estate, almost any verifiable economic value can be wrapped into a product and brought to market. The investible universe expands dramatically.

Honest about the timeline

Obviously this is all speculative at the moment. But we think it’s plausible. AI is already playing a significant role in financial services, and the early signs of automation in product creation are visible.  

So we are confident about the direction of travel. The logic of Waves 1 and 2 points here. The infrastructure is being built. And in financial history, the gap between a plausible vision and a working reality has a habit of closing faster than anyone expects.