Schroders Capital has launched the virtual ‘investment committee agent’, as part of the expansion of its advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, and is aimed at further strengthen investment decision-making process in the private markets division of Schroders.
The solution was developed by Schroders Capital’s data science team and is specifically designed to work alongside the firm’s existing Generative AI Investment Analyst (GAiiA).
GAiiA, launched 12 months ago, has enabled private equity professionals at Schroders Capital to efficiently screen large amounts of data, accelerate due diligence and create first drafts of investment summaries.
Investment professionals retain full responsibility for reviewing the AI-generated outputs, augmenting the analysis, providing their own assessment of risks and opportunities, and finalising documentation prior to any investment decision. While AI tools support the investment process, every investment decision at Schroders Capital is made solely by experienced professionals.
The AI investment committee agent is engineered to interact seamlessly with GAiiA, reviewing preliminary documents produced by GAiiA and contributing further insights on topics such as sector dynamics, business model considerations and risk factors based on Schroders Capital’s historic investment data.
Investment team members then evaluate and build upon the AI agent’s feedback and can task GAiiA with producing an improved version of the original analysis, which again is subject to review by investment team members.
Schroders said the new tools would equip “investment experts to conduct more precise, consistent, and detailed analysis, with the aim of analysing even more investment targets than before”.
Both the virtual investment committee agent and GAiiA have undergone thorough testing in-house.
Since its introduction, Schroders said that GAiiA has supported the private equity team by generating first drafts of investment committee memoranda and responding to targeted investment-specific enquiries during direct/co-investment due diligence. It has already assisted with more than 40 investment cases and has now also been adopted by the firm’s primary and secondary investment teams, broadening its application across all private equity investment types.
Nils Rode, Chief Investment Officer at Schroders Capital, said: “The launch of our new AI investment committee agent represents an important milestone in the evolution of our investment process.
“By integrating this challenger system, we are ensuring even greater rigour in Schroders Capital’s investment decision-making process. Equally, the rollout of GAiiA across all private equity investment types as well as the planned future enhancements support our ongoing mission to elevate our investment analysis to a new level, benefiting our clients with access to leading capabilities and our employees with the development of new skills for an AI enabled future of work.”
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