Morgan Stanley to open wealth management platform access to AI agents

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Highlights

Morgan Stanley will open ShareWorks and Equity Edge platforms to AI agents for its 3,400 administration clients by next year, enabling direct AI access to core data.
The bank leverages the Model Context Protocol to allow external AI integration, distinguishing itself from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which restrict AI use to internal applications.
Morgan Stanley’s strategy to modernize corporate stock plan administration supports its $7.35 trillion wealth management business, credited with gathering $1.2 trillion in assets via workplace channels.

Agent access plan for corporate stock platforms

As first reported by CNBC, Morgan Stanley plans to open ShareWorks and Equity Edge to AI agents used by thousands of corporate clients, allowing those tools to pull information directly instead of relying on software interfaces built for human users. Mark Mitchell, chief product officer of Morgan Stanley at Work, says the bank has already granted early agentic access to a handful of clients and expects to extend it to its 3,400 administration clients by next year.

Mitchell says Morgan Stanley envisions a future in which corporate clients no longer log directly into ShareWorks or Equity Edge. Instead, they use agentic AI tools inside their companies to interact with the bank’s platforms, a shift that places automated systems between the client and Morgan Stanley’s underlying data and business logic.

The bank is using the Model Context Protocol, an open source standard designed to let AI models connect with data sources. That marks an early example of a major Wall Street bank opening core platforms to external AI tools, while rivals such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are so far focusing publicly on internal uses including coding support.

Wealth management implications for Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley has turned corporate stock compensation plan administration into a significant feeder for its wealth management arm, which the bank says is the world’s largest with $7.35 trillion in client assets. In April, executives credited the workplace strategy with helping gather $1.2 trillion in assets, underscoring why access to ShareWorks and Equity Edge matters beyond back-office efficiency.

The strategy builds on Morgan Stanley’s acquisitions of Solium Capital in 2019 and E-Trade in 2020, which created a business serving almost half of the companies in the S&P 500 and eight of the 10 largest unicorn startups, according to the firm. The bank’s premise is that administering employee stock plans gives it an opportunity to convert workers into wealth management clients as their assets grow.

Mitchell says fast-growing technology and biotech companies are seeking ways to manage more complex stock plans without adding support staff in areas such as human resources. Morgan Stanley also sees the same logic internally, arguing that agentic AI can help scale customer support, plan administration and the wealth funnel without adding large numbers of employees, while the firm remains confident that control of proprietary data and business logic will matter more than direct website traffic.

Our earlier article on Microsoft’s enterprise AI push outlined how the company is refocusing on business software and developer tools as competition in AI intensifies. We noted Microsoft introduced seven new models at its Build conference and is working to cut costs and reduce dependence on OpenAI, even as near-term sentiment stayed cautious despite longer-term AI optimism.

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