April 2025
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of BlackRock's approach to generative AI and agentic systems, based on publicly available information as of April 2025. As the world's largest asset manager with approximately $10 trillion in assets under management, BlackRock's AI strategy offers valuable insights into how financial institutions are incorporating advanced AI technologies into their operations and investment processes. The analysis examines BlackRock's AI infrastructure, current applications, approach to autonomy, and strategic partnerships, while placing these developments within broader industry context.
BlackRock, founded in 1988, has consistently positioned itself at the forefront of financial technology innovation, notably through its Aladdin platform which serves as an operating system for investment managers. In recent years, the company has accelerated its AI initiatives through the establishment of dedicated research teams, development of AI-enhanced products, and strategic partnerships with technology leaders.
This analysis explores how BlackRock is incorporating generative AI and developing capabilities that move toward agentic systems—AI systems capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous decision-making and action. The report draws on BlackRock's official publications, third-party analyses, and industry context to provide a comprehensive view of their approach.
At the center of BlackRock's AI initiatives is the BlackRock AI Labs, described on their corporate website as "the heart of innovation in AI at BlackRock" where "AI research and its applications help solve challenging problems throughout the firm, supporting BlackRock's mission and improving client outcomes."1
The AI Labs is co-led by two distinguished figures:
- Rachel Schutt: Managing Director and Technical Fellow at BlackRock
- Stephen Boyd: Samsung Professor of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University
The labs are further supported by an advisory team of world-renowned experts in AI, statistics, and optimization from Stanford University, including Trevor Hastie, Rob Tibshirani, Emmanuel Candes, and Mykel Kochenderfer.1
According to BlackRock's corporate website, the AI Labs conducts "research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and finance, synthesizing ideas to drive innovation in both fields."1 Their expertise spans several technical domains including:
- Statistics
- Machine learning
- Optimization
- Stochastic control
- Decision theory
These capabilities are applied to various business areas throughout the firm, including retirement planning, trading, alternatives, and ETFs.
The AI Labs has published several research papers, though not specifically focused on agentic AI. Notable publications include:
- "Strategic Asset Allocation with Illiquid Alternatives" (2022)
- "A Light-Weight Multi-Objective Asynchronous Hyper-Parameter Optimizer" (2022)
- "Financial market design and the rise of electronic trading" (2021)1
BlackRock has formed significant partnerships to advance its AI capabilities, most notably with Microsoft. In September 2024, Microsoft and BlackRock announced an enhanced strategic partnership focused on AI development for the financial services industry.2
The partnership extends beyond software development to infrastructure investment. In 2024, BlackRock and Microsoft launched the "Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership," a $30 billion fund aimed at enhancing AI supply chains and energy sourcing.3 This partnership was expanded in March 2025 to include Nvidia and Elon Musk's xAI, further strengthening the consortium's capabilities in AI infrastructure development.4
BlackRock has implemented several AI applications across its business, with varying degrees of autonomy and specific use cases.
In 2024, BlackRock introduced Aladdin Copilot, a generative AI tool integrated into its Aladdin platform. According to BlackRock's official description, Aladdin Copilot "serves to strengthen the connective tissue across the Aladdin platform, surfacing answers instantly to support key business decisions—unlocking new efficiencies and uncovering actionable information faster."5
Key features of Aladdin Copilot include:
- An intuitive user experience that provides immediate answers, "empowering every user to be an Aladdin expert"
- Configurable experiences that allow users to customize the Aladdin platform
- Permission-dependent access to insights for informed decision-making5
BlackRock emphasizes that Aladdin Copilot includes built-in safeguards:
- It will not provide investment advice or respond to questions outside the Aladdin platform boundaries
- It contains content filtering and parameters to limit risks of hallucination, misinformation, or inappropriate outputs5
According to Microsoft's blog post about the partnership, as Aladdin Copilot continues to evolve, it will be able to "facilitate faster onboarding of new users, generate reports, summarize research, prompt proactive alerts—and more."2
BlackRock has also developed eFront Copilot, a generative AI tool for its private markets platform. Launched in 2023, this tool enables users to "unlock new efficiencies and insights" with functionalities for quick analytics and visualization of factors like risk and performance.2 This complementary tool extends BlackRock's AI capabilities beyond public markets to alternative investments.
One of BlackRock's most innovative AI applications is the "Thematic Robot," a tool that combines LLMs with proprietary data to build equity baskets centered around emerging market themes. As described in BlackRock's July 2024 insights article:
"The 'robot' allows us to blend the power of LLMs with our proprietary data to build long/short or long only equity baskets with the help of a single streamlined tool."6
The Thematic Robot addresses challenges in thematic investing by:
- Providing greater speed and efficiency in basket construction compared to manual methods
- Offering more transparency and breadth than existing broker baskets
- Creating a comprehensive view of companies connected to specific themes6
A case study highlighted by BlackRock demonstrates how portfolio managers used the tool to build a basket around the GLP-1 theme (weight loss pharmaceuticals). The system helped identify both obvious and less apparent exposures to this theme in minutes, demonstrating its efficiency in uncovering investment opportunities.6
Importantly, BlackRock emphasizes that "portfolio manager expertise is engrained in every part of this process," indicating a hybrid approach that combines AI capabilities with human judgment.6
BlackRock has developed specialized large language models (LLMs) focused specifically on financial analysis tasks. Unlike general-purpose models, these specialized LLMs are fine-tuned on narrower datasets to perform specific investment tasks with higher accuracy.
For example, BlackRock's earnings call analysis model is "trained on more than 400,000 earnings call transcripts covering over 17,000 public firms, combined with two decades of historical market data, to explicitly learn an association between earnings call text and subsequent market reaction."6
BlackRock's internal testing showed that their specialized model outperformed general-purpose models like GPT-4 in forecasting market reactions following corporate earnings calls. This suggests their targeted approach to model development provides advantages in specific financial contexts.6
While BlackRock has not published dedicated research specifically addressing agentic AI or autonomous agents, their implementations and partnerships provide insights into their approach.
BlackRock's current AI implementations demonstrate varying levels of autonomy but generally emphasize human-AI collaboration rather than full autonomy:
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Aladdin Copilot: Functions primarily as an assistant that answers questions within the Aladdin environment rather than as an autonomous agent. It provides information and insights but does not appear to make independent decisions or take actions without human direction.5
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Thematic Robot: While more sophisticated in its analysis capabilities, this tool still requires substantial human involvement. BlackRock explicitly notes that "portfolio manager expertise is engrained in every part of this process"—from defining themes to customizing analysis and refining outputs.6
This suggests a measured approach that prioritizes augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing them with fully autonomous systems.
Despite the current emphasis on human-AI collaboration, BlackRock's partnership with Microsoft indicates a trajectory toward more autonomous capabilities. According to Microsoft's blog about the partnership:
"As AI evolves from query-driven to autonomous agents, platforms like Aladdin will expand their capabilities even further. Autonomous agents will help execute complex tasks, and continuously learn from interactions, offering advanced support, streamlined operations, and deeper insights."2
This suggests that while BlackRock's current implementations are more assistant-like than agent-like, they are positioned to evolve toward greater autonomy as the technology and regulatory landscape mature.
BlackRock emphasizes responsible AI implementation with appropriate safeguards. For Aladdin Copilot, they explicitly note that it:
- Contains content filtering and parameters to limit risks of hallucination and misinformation
- Will not provide investment advice or operate outside platform boundaries
- Ensures data privacy and security through the Aladdin platform5
This focus on responsible AI use suggests BlackRock is approaching the development of more autonomous capabilities with careful attention to risk management and governance—critical considerations in the highly regulated financial services industry.
BlackRock's approach to generative AI and agentic systems exists within a broader financial industry context where such technologies are still emerging.
According to a Citi GPS report published in January 2025, agentic AI in finance is "largely in an experimental phase" across the industry. The report indicates that various financial institutions are exploring use cases in areas such as:
- Compliance and regulatory monitoring
- Fraud prevention and detection
- Wealth management
- Treasury workflows7
This positioning of agentic AI as experimental aligns with BlackRock's measured approach, which focuses on practical implementations that enhance existing processes rather than radical transformations through fully autonomous systems.
BlackRock is not alone in pursuing AI innovation in financial services. Other major asset managers and financial institutions are also investing in generative AI capabilities. However, BlackRock's scale, technology infrastructure (particularly the Aladdin platform), and strategic partnerships may provide competitive advantages in deploying these technologies effectively.
The company's partnership with Microsoft, particularly their joint $30 billion fund for AI infrastructure investment, suggests a long-term strategic commitment to advancing AI capabilities that may position BlackRock ahead of competitors in leveraging these technologies.3
BlackRock's approach to generative AI and agentic systems demonstrates a strategic, measured progression toward more advanced AI capabilities while maintaining a balanced emphasis on human oversight and responsible implementation.
Key observations from this analysis include:
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Hybrid Approach: BlackRock emphasizes human-AI collaboration rather than full autonomy, with tools like the Thematic Robot explicitly incorporating human expertise throughout the process.
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Specialized Focus: Their development of specialized LLMs for specific financial tasks rather than relying solely on general-purpose models demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of AI's application in finance.
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Strategic Investments: BlackRock's partnerships with Microsoft, Nvidia, and others on AI infrastructure suggest a long-term commitment to advancing AI capabilities.
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Evolutionary Path: While current implementations function more as assistants than autonomous agents, BlackRock appears positioned to evolve toward more agentic capabilities as the technology and regulatory landscape mature.
As generative AI continues to advance, BlackRock's approach suggests a vision for financial services where AI progressively takes on more autonomous capabilities while maintaining human oversight in critical decision-making processes—a balance that reflects both the opportunities and challenges of deploying advanced AI in highly regulated financial contexts.
Footnotes
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BlackRock. (n.d.). BlackRock AI Labs. Retrieved April 2025, from https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/ai ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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Microsoft. (2024, September 30). Elevating investment management tech: AI-powered leadership from BlackRock and Microsoft. Microsoft Industry Blogs. Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/blog/financial-services/2024/09/30/elevating-investment-management-tech-ai-powered-leadership-from-blackrock-and-microsoft/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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Reuters. (2024, September 17). Microsoft, BlackRock to launch $30 billion fund for AI infrastructure. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-blackrock-plan-30-bln-fund-invest-ai-infrastructure-ft-reports-2024-09-17/ ↩ ↩2
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Reuters. (2025, March 19). Nvidia, Musk's xAI to join Microsoft, BlackRock and MGX to develop AI infrastructure. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-xai-join-microsoft-blackrock-develop-ai-infrastructure-2025-03-19/ ↩
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BlackRock. (2024). Introducing Generative AI by Aladdin® | Aladdin Copilot. Retrieved April 2025, from https://www.blackrock.com/aladdin/solutions/aladdin-copilot ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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BlackRock. (2024, July 29). How AI is transforming investing. Retrieved April 2025, from https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/insights/ai-investing ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7
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Citi GPS. (2025, January 17). Agentic AI - Finance & the 'Do It For Me' Economy. Retrieved April 2025, from https://www.citigroup.com/global/insights/agentic-ai ↩
@donbr Great Gist on agentic in asset management!