The AI Gap in Family Offices: Investing in It vs. Actually Using It

Most family offices are investing in artificial intelligence. Far fewer are actually using it to run their operations. That gap tells us a great deal about where the industry stands today.

The most recent report from RBC and Campden Wealth, based on a global survey of 317 family offices, documents this disconnect clearly. While 74% of respondents report having investments with AI exposure, only 9% use generative AI as a risk management tool, and just 29% use it to improve investment reporting. Yet when asked whether they would want to use AI for risk management, 74% say yes.

The pattern is consistent across other major studies. BlackRock's 2025 global report, drawing on data from 175 single-family offices managing more than $320 billion in assets — roughly equivalent to Chile's GDP — shows a similar picture: 51% invest in AI-related opportunities, but only 33% use it internally, while many core processes remain manual.

This gap between investment and adoption should not come as a surprise. For years, Latin American investors and family offices have been managing their investment records in Excel — fed manually, maintained by small teams, and prone to error. This is particularly striking given that solutions now exist that connect directly with custodians to receive data on listed instruments automatically.

The challenge becomes even more acute with private market investments. Teams routinely receive extensive documents — fund agreements, manager reports, investment memoranda — containing dense, complex information that requires significant time just to process and organize. The result is that much of the team's capacity is consumed by information management rather than decision-making.

The interest in changing this is clearly there. The same RBC and Campden report notes that 65% of family offices consider their reporting processes still "too manual." The willingness exists. The implementation does not.

This is precisely where AI begins to show its value — not by replacing people, but by transforming how teams process complex information and convert it into useful inputs for decision-making. In other industries, AI may displace workers. In family offices, its greatest contribution will likely be in improving the quality and speed of how decisions get made.

The more relevant question is no longer whether AI will change how family offices operate — that outcome seems increasingly inevitable. The question is whether the family has made a conscious decision to integrate it into the way they work. In most cases, that decision has not yet been made. And that is probably the first step worth taking before evaluating any specific tool.

By Lawrence Lamonica | Lamonica Advisory Group