At this year’s Fiduciary and Wealth Disputes Seminar, Robins Kaplan partner Tim Billion facilitated a panel discussion titled, “Unusual Assets and Contemporary Trends.” The session featured David Axtell (Partner, Stinson LLP), Katherine Johnson (Executive Chair, Storj Institute), and Jordan Vitek (Chief Fiduciary Officer, Wealth Enhancement Group). Together, they unpacked the evolving world of fiduciary oversight amid technological disruption—from AI and blockchain to closely held businesses, and even deepfakes.
Here are five key takeaways:
1. New and Unusual Assets Require an Agile Approach
“Unusual assets” can mean anything from farmland and family businesses to cryptocurrency and cannabis ventures.
Even with directed trusts and liability carveouts, fiduciaries can still end up in the headlines when something goes wrong. The takeaway: Fiduciaries must consider reputational risk and carefully adjust to unique situations, especially when new assets, legal issues, or trends push into legal or ethical gray zones.
2. Technology Keeps Changing the Rules
Each technological wave reshapes fiduciary responsibility. From early debates over hyperlinks in the 1990s to today’s blockchain and AI challenges, change is a constant. The pace can feel overwhelming, but the solution isn’t panic. It’s returning to fundamentals like diligence, governance, and ethical judgment.
Fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and oversight are expanding in scope. If we haven’t kept up with the implications of those duties, fiduciaries will struggle to apply them to new technologies.
3. AI Brings Both Efficiency and Exposure
Based on past bubbles in blockchain and tech startups, fiduciaries and investors should resist the urge to buy the hype without verifying the substance behind it. Many AI companies today operate more like early-stage experiments, with limited structure and no clear ownership of their data, code, or IP.
Fiduciaries must take ownership of effective due diligence. Regulatory enforcement, particularly from the FTC and EU, could lead to extreme outcomes like forced destruction of models trained on unauthorized data.
4. Human Judgment Still Matters
While AI offers powerful tools for compliance, monitoring, and client service, overreliance on generative tools can lead to complacency or misinformation.
Deepfakes are becoming increasingly convincing and expanding to include tactics like voice spoofs to take advantage of assumptions that telephonic communications are reliable. Vigilance and human intuition can prevent victimization, particularly when combined with multiple levels of scrutiny or verification. Technology enhances, but cannot replace, human oversight.
5. Looking Ahead: Oversight, Ethics, and Guardrails
When asked for future predictions, the panelists offered these insights:
- Axtell expects AI adoption across professional services to accelerate with clients increasingly demanding proof of its use and efficiency.
- Johnson anticipates growing emphasis on governance, oversight, and alignment between corporate goals and societal responsibility.
- Vitek urged fiduciaries to “embrace the technology, but with guardrails,” emphasizing risk assessments and staff training to prevent misuse.
Final Thought
If one theme tied the discussion together, it was the enduring value of stewardship in a high-tech age. Whether managing farmland or algorithms, fiduciaries must stay curious, cautious, and principled. We’ve been adapting to change since the dawn of time. We must challenge ourselves to remember what makes us human as we do it.
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