Stillness as strategy

Dec 27

Article Published in STEP Journal: Issue 6, 2025

Frédéric Sanz explains how AI can create operational stillness for trustees, embedding compliance and reducing decision fatigue to ensure clarity, calm efficiency and client trust

The role of a trustee is evolving, though not always in the ways most headlines suggest. Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) in fiduciary work tend to centre on automation and efficiency. These are surface-level outcomes. The deeper opportunity lies in how AI can help trustees manage complexity, reduce compliance burden and restore the conditions for sound fiduciary judgement.

Across the sector, firms are grappling with compliance layering, fragmented data and endless touchpoints. The cumulative effect is operational overload: decision fatigue for leaders, strategic drift for boards and a quiet erosion of client confidence.

What trustees increasingly need is not to move faster, but to move with greater clarity. This balance between precision and calm purpose can be described as operational stillness: an environment in which processes flow reliably, compliance is embedded rather than bolted on, and leadership can focus on stewardship rather than firefighting.

AI has a critical role to play in achieving this. When designed as part of a firm’s operational architecture, rather than as an add-on tool, it can help create the stability and transparency on which effective fiduciary governance depends.

What is operational stillness? Empty heading

Operational stillness is not inaction. It is a state in which:

processes flow quietly and reliably;
decisions emerge without cognitive overload;
compliance is embedded rather than bolted on; and
leadership focuses on stewardship, not firefighting.

Stillness allows trustees to project calm authority – the very quality that clients, regulators and boards trust most.

Paradoxically, the more complex trust structures become, the more important stillness becomes. Without it, even sophisticated firms can become fragile under their own operational weight.

Quiet risks in modern trust structures Empty heading

Consider the example of a trust distribution in a multi-jurisdictional firm. This process may require:

verification of the request;
tax analysis and sign-off;
legal review of deed provisions;
anti-money laundering (AML) checks and transaction screening;
multiple layers of approvals and documentation;
manual triggering of payment instructions; and
post-transaction reconciliation and filing.

Each of these steps is individually justifiable; however, combined, especially across hundreds of client relationships, multiple jurisdictions and evolving regulatory standards, they create an environment where operational noise becomes constant background pressure.

The risk is not necessarily non-compliance or individual error, but rather:

leadership teams consumed by daily exceptions, rather than strategy;
boards drawn into operational detail instead of governance; and
clients sensing hesitation rather than confidence.

AI offers a way to address this – not by replacing people but by removing the friction that clouds fiduciary judgement.

When applied carefully, AI becomes a support structure that reinforces client confidence not by promising perfection but by operating from a position of clarity and flow.

AI as architectural calm, not a shortcut Empty heading

In his work across trust companies and family offices, the author has consistently seen AI framed as a ‘bolt-on’ efficiency tool. It is not: when seen as a core component of operational architecture, its potential shifts significantly.

AI can:

automate background processes to free up leadership to focus on fiduciary decisions;
embed compliance triggers into workflows;
create consistent audit trails without adding to human workload; and
enable governance clarity at board level.

This is what the author terms ‘architectural calm’, enabling firms to reclaim clarity in a high-complexity environment. When applied carefully, AI becomes a support structure that reinforces client confidence not by promising perfection but by operating from a position of clarity and flow.

Examples from the field Empty heading

Institutions across financial services – and increasingly, the fiduciary space – are demonstrating how AI, used with restraint, delivers operational stillness.

J.P. Morgan COiN Empty heading

J.P. Morgan’s Contract Intelligence (COiN) platform uses natural language processing to extract key data from legal documents. It has reportedly saved hundreds of thousands of legal staff hours, ensuring consistency and freeing leadership attention for higher-order governance. The key is not speed; it is clarity of obligations and auditability of decisions.

HSBC and Silent Eight Empty heading

HSBC has implemented Silent Eight’s AI-powered name screening across its global AML workflows. By reducing false positives in name matching, HSBC has cut compliance drag and allowed human compliance officers to focus on the cases that truly require human judgement. The result has been better governance outcomes, not just faster workflows.

Vanguard Empty heading

Vanguard uses AI to automate privacy and data subject access requests and regulatory reporting, improving transparency while reducing regulatory exposure. Critically, the AI works quietly in the background, enabling better client experience and board-level confidence in data governance.

Leading family offices Empty heading

Similar quiet AI adoption is emerging within sophisticated family offices, where trustees leverage AI to maintain real-time compliance readiness, simplify cross-border reporting and automate fiduciary workflow triggers, without displacing human oversight or personal client relationships.

These are not headline-grabbing ‘AI disruptions’; they are quiet revolutions that restore leadership capacity and resilience where it matters most.

Trustees must be prepared to articulate not only what AI is doing, but why it serves the interests of clients and beneficiaries.

A strategic approach for trustees Empty heading

AI should not be viewed as a technology investment but as a governance strategy.

Approached this way, the core questions become:

Where is operational friction eroding leadership clarity?
Which compliance functions are over-relying on human effort?
Where could AI restore flow without sacrificing oversight?
How do we ensure AI serves fiduciary intent, not vendor-driven hype?

Critically, firms must resist the temptation to chase ‘full automation’.

Trust is not served by removing human discretion; it is served by ensuring that human judgement is applied where it adds value, supported by invisible, reliable systems.

Cultural shifts required Empty heading

Operational stillness requires more than tools. It needs a shift in culture. Many firms still rely on heroic staff efforts to manage complexity but this model is not sustainable.

Embedding AI-driven compliance checks upstream reduces the last-minute crises that damage both staff morale and client confidence. Boards and directors should also move away from being operational firefighters and return to their rightful role: stewards of long-term trust and clarity. AI makes these shifts possible – but only if implementation is led by governance strategy, not technology enthusiasm.

Ethical considerations Empty heading

The use of AI in fiduciary operations carries ethical obligations:

Transparency: Clients and regulators should always be able to understand how key decisions are made and how technology is used.
Accountability: Responsibility must remain with human fiduciaries, even when processes are supported by technology.
Alignment: AI must reinforce, not undermine, the principles of fiduciary duty: care, loyalty and prudence.

Trustees must be prepared to articulate not only what AI is doing, but why it serves the interests of clients and beneficiaries.

Looking ahead Empty heading

The future may not belong to the fastest firms or even the most technologically advanced. It will belong to those designed for calm, clarity and continuity. AI has a role to play in that future, if approached with humility and strategic intent.

The ultimate client experience is not speed. It is quiet confidence that:

their trustee operates with calm authority;
their decisions flow from clear fiduciary judgement, not operational chaos; and
their trust structures will endure, not because the firm is chasing trends but because it is designed for resilience.

As fiduciaries, we are stewards not only of capital but of trust itself. In an increasingly complex and noisy world, this calls for the cultivation of operational stillness at the heart of our organisations. When applied with care and purpose, AI does not disrupt this mandate; it strengthens it.

STEP members have the opportunity to lead this conversation globally. Not by chasing technological trends but by showing how innovation can serve the enduring principles of our profession.

Firms that design for clarity, calm and purpose will be the ones best placed to endure in an increasingly complex fiduciary landscape.

Frédéric Sanz

With over 20 years of elite financial expertise in Switzerland, I specialize in managing UHNWIs assets, leading high-performing teams, and driving innovation in wealth management. As a TEP, MSc., MAS, and Executive MBA with AI diplomas from MIT and Kellogg, I combine deep technical knowledge with strategic leadership for business growth.

A blockchain specialist, I deliver exceptional revenue growth while elevating client satisfaction. Fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and English, I offer a global perspective, blending advanced AI-driven strategies with traditional wealth management.