Writing to you from Iceland this month — a short working trip that offered both the clarity of distance and, at one point, the complete absence of infrastructure when the power went out across a significant portion of the country for several hours. A useful reminder that the resilience of any system, digital or physical, depends on the layers underneath it.
This month's newsletter covers the AI dividend argument that Tim Brown and IDEO have now published in full, a set of signals from the AI space worth tracking, a note on a hiring opportunity at Simple, and upcoming workshops.
The AI dividend: Tim Brown and IDEO publish the argument in full
Following our conversation at the Copenhagen Gathering, Tim Brown has now published the full version of the AI dividend argument that he outlined for us in April. The core claim: organisations that adopt AI thoughtfully — not just deploying tools, but redesigning workflows around new capabilities — will generate a structural productivity advantage that compounds over time. He calls this the AI dividend, and argues that the gap between early adopters and late movers will be larger and more durable than most leaders currently expect.
The piece is worth reading in full. For family offices specifically, the argument has direct implications for how you think about technology investment and capability building over the next two to three years. The question is not whether AI will be a meaningful part of family office operations — that outcome seems highly probable — but whether your office will be positioned to capture the dividend or left playing catch-up.
We will be sharing our own analysis of what the AI dividend means for the family office model specifically in an upcoming piece. Watch this space.
This month in AI
A selection of signals worth tracking from the past month:
- Anthropic released Claude 3.5 Sonnet with significantly improved performance on document analysis and multi-step reasoning tasks — the use cases most relevant to family office operations
- Several major private banks have begun piloting AI-assisted client reporting tools, signalling that the technology is moving into mainstream wealth management infrastructure
- The EU AI Act's first tranche of obligations came into effect, including Article 4 literacy requirements — family offices with European operations should confirm their training frameworks are in place
- A growing number of family offices are reporting successful pilots of local AI deployment — running open-source models on office hardware to process sensitive documents without sending data to external providers
Capital signals
- Mythos, the AI-native legal platform, raised a significant Series A — their model of AI-assisted legal services with expert oversight is directly relevant to family office legal operations
- Several family office technology platforms have announced AI integration roadmaps, though the substance varies considerably; we will be publishing an assessment of the vendor landscape shortly
- There is continued consolidation in the portfolio management software space, with implications for offices currently evaluating or mid-implementation with the platforms involved
Simple is hiring: CTO
We are looking for a Chief Technology Officer to join the Simple team. This is a foundational role for someone who wants to build the technology infrastructure for the world's leading family office platform — combining deep technical capability with genuine understanding of what family offices need from their digital tools. If you know someone who might be the right fit, we would welcome an introduction.
Upcoming workshops
A reminder of the workshops we have planned for the coming months:
- London — May 2026: AI governance for family offices (invitations sent)
- Zurich — June 2026: Next-generation transition and succession
- New York — July 2026: Technology and data infrastructure
- Singapore — September 2026: Family office formation in Asia-Pacific
Reach out if you would like to be considered for any of these.