Artificial intelligence: The new space race

Welcome back to "Charting Tomorrow", the LinkedIn newsletter from Natixis Investment Managers! Every month, we'll pose the same question to our global stable of financial experts: "what's one chart that explains our current economic situation...and might have been overlooked?" From the widest macro lens to the narrowest bottom-up view, we'll bring you new lenses through which to see the world.

Artificial intelligence (AI) – it’s seemingly impossible to avoid. The release of ChatGPT in 2022 made generative AI an accessible, mainstream tool. Since then, AI has quickly captured the money-saving imaginations of corporate leaders, the anxiety of workers worried they’ll be replaced by faceless algorithms, and growth-driving dreams of investors. To that end, 71% of institutional investors believe AI will help unlock new investment opportunities in the years ahead, according the 2025 Natixis Institutional Outlook Survey.*

If AI were a movie, what would it be?

With AI-manipulated images and ethical dilemmas making headlines, one might think we are watching a horror film or comedic drama unfold before our eyes. Yet, our second annual Institutional AI Screen Test* shows perceptions of AI have improved year over year. The majority of investment teams (62%) surveyed said Moneyball did the best job of describing their views on AI – it’s just a tool for making money.

This increase of 12% over 2024’s 50%^ shows a significant shift in the acceptance of AI. It’s especially true as the number who defined it with War Games – worrying that AI would accidently set off geopolitical conflict – dropped from 35%^ to 20%. The number who identified with Wall-E, and the idea that AI would care enough to save civilization, remains about the same, similarly Terminator and fears of the machines killing off humanity remained at 6%.

AI expected to remain a growth engine

What does this change in perception mean? A growing number of organizations are embracing AI and integrating it into their strategies and workflow. More than 70% of institutional investors say the race for AI supremacy is the new space race.* Another 55% call AI a bigger investment opportunity than the Internet was. But beyond the investment opportunities, institutional teams are also finding AI to be an essential tool in their own work.

55% of survey respondents called Artificial Intelligence "a bigger investment opportunity than the Internet was."*

Seven out of ten (69%) are looking to AI to unlock investment opportunity that was previously undetectable, while 59% believe it will help them uncover risk they couldn’t see before. The application of AI within institutional investment processes is growing, too. The number of respondents who said they are increasing the use of AI in their strategies rose from 54% last year to 64% this year. It’s become such an essential tool that half (51%) are convinced that teams will become obsolete if they don’t embed AI in their process.

Widespread availability of AI tools does not come without risk, and 72% caution that the societal and privacy risks of AI are under-appreciated and 58% worry that AI will open a new set of geopolitical risks. But, while a significant number of institutions (41%) worry that the risks may be greater than the opportunity, and more than one-third (34%) define the risks in more dire terms, calling it an existential threat to civilization as we know it, for now it appears the majority of investors seem more interested in the potential upsides, than the risks - a trend that could partly explain the longevity of the tech rally that continued to dominate markets in 2024.

*Natixis Investment Managers, Global Survey of Institutional Investors conducted by CoreData Research in October and November 2024. Survey included 500 institutional investors in 28 countries throughout North America, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

^ Natixis Investment Managers, Global Survey of Institutional Investors conducted by CoreData Research in October and November 2023. Survey included 500 institutional investors in 27 countries throughout North America, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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