Is your firm ready to set the standard?
Your firm has the opportunity to confront the investment industry’s most pressing challenges – from integrating AI responsibly and developing future-ready workforce capabilities to strengthening ethics and client trust. Explore research, practical guidance, and learning resources designed to help your firm set the standard.
CFA Institute brings more than 75 years of experience to help your firm set the standard
The challenges shaping investment firms
CFA Institute draws on intelligence from a global community of more than 200,000 investment professionals, over 200 industry roundtables each year, and research developed with leading industry experts. This collective expertise helps firms respond to markets and movements with confidence.
Explore practical insights and resources:
Sharpen your AI integration
Develop your people at scale
Bring clarity to complex governance
Judgment in the age of AI
Turning uncertainty into informed decisions
As AI reshapes how capital is allocated and risk is assessed, success will depend on how effectively firms apply human judgment alongside new capabilities. CFA Institute helps your firm separate signal from noise and make informed decisions.
What we’re seeing
Human judgment remains essential
Our recent guidance frames the future of the profession around human judgment paired with AI – not replaced by it – across portfolio management, risk, and trading. (1)
AI washing is eroding trust
A CFA Institute report on 'AI washing' warns that firms overstating AI capabilities erode client trust. Transparency about how AI is used is now an ethical and competitive requirement. (2)
Workforce anxiety is already high
In a CFA Institute survey of 200 investment firms, 60% of employers said the workforce seems anxious about AI, and 48% note resistance. (3)
Featured research
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Finance
How can artificial intelligence reshape finance? What changes will AI make to the way investors process information, allocate capital, manage risk, define professional skill and preserve accountability in an increasingly automated system?
Additional resources for judgment in the age of AI
Research report
AI Washing: Separating Capability from Claims
Examines the ethical risks of AI washing in finance, with practical questions to help investment stakeholders evaluate AI claims and verify genuine application.
Article
Explainable AI in Finance: Addressing the Needs of Diverse Stakeholders
Addresses how explainable AI (XAI) builds transparency, trust and regulatory compliance across finance, tailoring machine-learning explanations to six distinct stakeholder groups.
Future-ready workforces
Turning workforce potential into performance
Talent alone does not set firms apart, but applied expertise does. CFA Institute develops rigorous programs for professionals, so your firm can build the expertise to deliver greater value to clients.
What we’re seeing
Soft skills are the biggest talent gap
A survey of 500 finance managers found soft skills are the biggest gap in new professionals, ahead of AI skills, creativity, quantitative and synthesis skills. (4)
Soft skills still drive employability
Soft skills make professionals most employable today for 67% of managers. AI skills trail at 49%. (5)
New entrants lack both human and AI skills
In a survey across the US, UK, and Canada, employers increasingly valued both soft skills and AI readiness, yet that’s where new entrants fell short. (6)
Featured research
The Future of Work in Investment Management
The CFA Institute Future of Work report reveals how AI, sustainability and hybrid work are reshaping investment roles, the skills in demand, and what professionals and firms must do to prosper.
Additional resources for future-ready workforces
Article
Building an Effective Skills Taxonomy
Outlines five rules for creating a practical, role‑based skills taxonomy that aligns training, performance management and career pathways in the investment industry.
Article
The Skills Gap Challenge
Demonstrates how investment firms can identify and close skills gaps using structured data, AI‑enabled analysis and flexible, human‑centred workforce planning.
Trust through ethics & standards
Turning oversight into accountable actions
Governance is tested in the hard calls, not the easy ones. That's what clients, regulators and markets remember. Through our research and standards, CFA Institute helps firms strengthen clear, accountable decision-making.
What we’re seeing
Private markets require stronger disclosure
The ongoing ethics-in-private-markets series from CFA Institute examines how structures like continuation funds can create conflicts of interest that demand proactive disclosure. (7)
GIPS® standards are widely adopted
Over 1,600 organizations in 50+ markets, including every one of the world's top 25 asset managers, claim compliance with our GIPS standards. (8)
AI washing is an emerging integrity risk
Our ethics research names 'AI washing' as an emerging integrity risk firms must get ahead of. (9)
Featured resource
The Asset Manager Code™
The CFA Institute Asset Manager Code sets out six ethical principles for firms managing client assets, plus a practical four‑step process to review policies, align procedures and formally claim compliance.
Additional resources for ethics, standards and trust
Turn Principles into Practice
Explains why trust and the Code of Ethics are foundational to finance, and how guidance, case studies and community support help the industry apply principles in practice.
Continuation Funds: Ethics in Private Markets (Pt 1)
Details how continuation funds provide private‑market liquidity, why they’ve grown so fast, and what conflicts of interest they create for managers and investors.
7 CFA Institute Research & Policy Center, Conflicts of Interest in Continuation Funds: Part II in a Series on Ethics in Private Markets, 2026
8 CFA Institute Research & Policy Center, GIPS® Standards: Performance, Ethics & Reporting
9 CFA Institute Research & Policy Center, AI Washing: Signs, Symptoms, and Suggested Solutions, June 2025
CFA Institute for employers
Build expertise across your firm
Our learning pathways, professional development and practical resources strengthen investment expertise at every level, supporting better decisions and preparing your firm for what comes next.
Standards in action
Hear how firms and their investment professionals set the standard for industry around the world.
“Technical capability alone is no longer sufficient for any professional. When I talk to my clients, they are looking to us for trust—trusted advice and trusted knowledge. Trust is built on ethics, integrity, and professionalism.”
Cindy Tan, CFA
CEO (Singapore), GMO
“When you’re negotiating a deal or a big transaction, there’s instantly a higher level of trust if you know the person on the other side of the deal table has a CFA charter.”
David Ching, CFA
Vice President, CFA Society Hong Kong
“The CFA Program gives you the framework to think through those decisions in a way that puts the client’s interest first.”
Emily Barlow, CFA
Senior Asset Consultant, Evidentia
Why CFA Institute
Empowering the investment industry
For over 75 years, we’ve supported investment professionals to turn learning into leading, principles into practice, networks into connections and complexity into clarity.
Research
Independent thinking on the forces reshaping investment practice.
Learning
Practical development that helps teams build capability at scale.
Standards
Frameworks that support ethical decision-making and trusted practice.
Membership
A global professional community connected by shared standards.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What support does CFA Institute offer investment firms?
CFA Institute works with investment firms - not just individual professionals - on the challenges reshaping the industry: AI in asset management and investment management, workforce skills and capability, and ethics and standards. Through research, standards and professional development, we help firms turn complex challenges into clear, confident actions.
2. What challenges are shaping investment firms?
Three forces are reshaping the industry at once. AI in investment management is changing how decisions get made and who's accountable for them; workforce skills are evolving faster than many training pipelines can keep up with; and ethics and standards are under growing scrutiny from clients, regulators and markets alike. CFA Institute research tracks all three, so firms aren't navigating them in the dark.
3. Is this different from the CFA® charter my employees already hold?
Yes. The CFA charter is an individual credential, earned by investment professionals. CFA Institute offers enterprise learning and resources built for firm’s as a whole - helping organizations strengthen standards, upskill teams at scale and govern AI responsibly, even where individual staff already hold the charter.
4. How can CFA Institute help firms develop workforce skills at scale?
The CFA charter itself is one of the most scalable ways to upskill a workforce. Our goal is to move beyond traditional knowledge-based learning and deliver practical, desk-ready skills that employers expect from day one. Recent curriculum updates have expanded Practical Skills Modules in areas like financial modelling, Python, data science and AI, alongside the technical foundations the CFA Program has always covered, which evolves as the industry does. For firms wanting more than the standard pathway, CFA Institute also offers bespoke, custom solutions built around specific workforce needs.
5. Where can firms find guidance on responsible AI in investment management?
CFA Institute research explores responsible AI in asset management: how human judgment remains essential as automation expands, how to identify and avoid 'AI washing' claims, and how to make AI-driven decisions explainable to regulators, clients and risk teams alike.
6. Which CFA Institute standards are relevant to investment firms?
Firms can align with several CFA Institute standards depending on their objectives, including the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS®), the voluntary, ethical standards for calculating and presenting investment performance (followed by the world's top 25 asset managers) and the CFA Institute Asset Manager Code, which sets out core principles for ethical conduct at firm level.
7. How do I start partnering with CFA Institute?
Every firm's starting point is different, depending on whether you are navigating AI integration, workforce development, or ethics and governance. Contact CFA Institute to discuss which standards, research and support are the right fit for your organization.