Apex Dublin AI Fireside Chat
- Iain Carey
- Jan 5
- 2 min read
On 17th December 2025, John Bohan of Apex invited myself to join him in a fireside chat at their Dublin Christmas dinner with 20+ industry stakeholders including clients, lawyers, auditors, INEDs, ManCos and other service providers. The purpose was to discuss AI trends in the funds industry whilst John shared Apex's AI strategy in the topic areas.
The AI fireside chat turned into an interactive roundtable discussion with multiple guests sharing their perspectives or asking thoughtful questions for the group.
Key discussion items and observations:
Apex's AI roadmap is exciting and includes internal tools, client facing AI products, cutting-edge AI products, and autonomous market initiatives.
We set the scene with the building blocks of AI (chips/compute; models; orchestration layer; end user) and where the value will ultimately be derived (hint: end user) albeit the foundational blocks (compute) are realising the value in this early stage of the cycle)
We outlined the building blocks needed for AI to be successful: data governance as the foundation, strategy in the middle, AI uses cases at the top. Often the use cases get the headlines and attention whilst also blamed for any failures, whereas failures are often driven by data.
Though provoking discussion pondering that if everyone uses AI, will all efficiency gains and margin ultimately be competed away? Answer: Sort-of but not quiet. Digitalisation, outsourcing, automation are all waves that have unlocked margin and nearly everyone now uses them, but it's a spectrum and different levels of efficiency and margin achieved today.
Used a meme for humour (AI poisonous mushroom meme) but to hammer home the importance of guardrails and governance for AI deployment
The lawyers and INEDs had a healthy discussion around AI in the boardroom and the implications for board minutes. I suggest anyone interested should watch episode 2 of my podcast with Bernard Hanratty.
We discussed EU AI Act, China's AI approach, people & culture, and much more!
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