Artificial intelligence is fast becoming an essential tool for asset managers seeking to boost productivity and sharpen investment research, but human judgement is still central to navigating unpredictable markets.
That was the assessment of participants at a panel discussion during the 14th Annual Malaysia Roundtable organised by Asia Asset Management on May 5.
Muzzafar Othman, chief operating officer of Permodalan Nasional, Malaysia’s largest fund management company, noted that investment firms are increasingly adopting AI to cope with rising cost pressures and improve operational efficiency.
“It’s about increasing productivity,” he said.
He said PNB is rolling out the technology in stages, beginning with anti-money laundering and fraud monitoring, and then expanding into customer analytics and, eventually, for investment-related functions.
He also observed that AI-assisted coding tools are slashing development timelines, and are increasingly being used to automate tasks that used to take hours to complete manually.
“You don’t even now have to learn to code,” he said.
But he emphasised that governance and data management remain critical as financial institutions deploy AI more widely. “You have to make sure that you have proper governance around the data that you own.”
Tan Chong Koay, former chairman of Malaysia’s Pheim Asset Management, pointed out that AI has improved in recent years and can now provide information at remarkable speed.
“The improvement is very significant,” he said, referring to the rapid evolution of tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
But he cautioned against relying too much on technology when investing, which he argued remains heavily dependent on human judgement and interpretation. “Investment is an art,” he said. “The market’s got no logic.”
Tan said AI models often rely heavily on historical patterns whereas investors must anticipate changes that may not resemble the past. “The key importance is still in the human.”
Meanwhile, Ahkter Abdul Manan, a director at Malaysia’s BIMB Securities, said AI could help the insurance industry improve fraud detection, automate processing of claims, and strengthen catastrophe modelling capabilities.
But as far as AI adoption in the Malaysian insurance industry is concerned, “I think it’s not there yet”, said the former chief investment officer of local reinsurer MNRB Holdings.
