BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said artificial intelligence has tremendous potential to boost productivity and may ultimately be the technology that can tamp down inflation.
(Bloomberg) — BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said artificial intelligence has tremendous potential to boost productivity and may ultimately be the technology that can tamp down inflation.
The collapse of productivity has been a key issue within global economies and a major “reason why we have such sticky inflation,” he said Wednesday at the BlackRock Investor Day. Fink said AI “may be the technology that can bring down the inflation.”
The CEO of the world’s largest asset manager said AI could have “some very large outcomes for long-term investing” and could also transform margins across sectors. With AI, Fink said, BlackRock will have the “same healthy paranoia, the same healthy enthusiasm,” that it brings to its other businesses.
Fink and other senior executives laid out a vision for BlackRock’s growth as a one-stop shop for investors that provides tech, data, analytics, funds and financial markets advice to clients.
The firm aims to double its private markets revenue over the next five years to about $2 billion from $1 billion in 2022. Revenue from private markets — which includes infrastructure, private equity, real estate and private credit — had already more than doubled since 2018.
Read More: BlackRock Seeking to Become One-Stop Shop for Private Assets
Fink, 70, also told investors he doesn’t anticipate retiring in the near future.
“I’m not planning to leave BlackRock any time soon,” he said, “but BlackRock’s board and I have no higher priority than developing the next generation of leaders.”
BlackRock’s size and influence have grown over the past decade, with investors pouring money into the firm’s index, exchange-traded and other funds. The company managed $9.1 trillion in client assets at the end of March, and had net inflows of $110 billion in the first quarter as investors put money into the firm’s cash-management and bond funds.
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