Discussing Private Markets and Practical AI at Linedata Exchange Northern Europe 2025
When comparing Linedata Exchange (LDX) Northern Europe 2025 with its 2024 edition, a strong common theme emerges: To navigate a turbulent world and economic markets, modern asset management demands agility, transparency, and smart automation.
What was striking this year was how far the conversation around AI has progressed. Discussion has shifted from speculation to tangible use cases and best practices. Across the day at LDX, asset management leaders, technologists, and innovators discussed how AI adoption has moved from theory to execution and operational value.
Navigating Market Trends in 2025 and Beyond
The day opened with a keynote panel on how asset managers are rethinking strategy amid shifting macroeconomic conditions, increasing retailisation, and expanding private capital flows.
Michael Beattie, head of product strategy at Linedata, outlined a decade-long transformation in asset allocation: while private markets have attracted significant institutional capital, recent volatility and inverted yield curves in the U.S. and Europe have prompted a tactical pivot toward short-duration products and cash equivalents. “Most asset managers have had to over-allocate to money market securities. It’s a tactical shift, but a very real one,” he said.
The panel discussed the rise of the retail and wealth channel as a new engine for growing assets under management. Firms are now wrestling with how to deliver private market exposure to thousands of retail clients rather than a dozen institutional investors. This shift requires new vehicles like interval funds, operational models, and high levels of automation to manage scale and customisation cost-effectively.
Technology enables this shift. Asset managers are demanding modular, fast-to-implement platforms that provide end-to-end support, from order creation to execution and compliance. AI plays a role here, enabling new front-office workflows, predictive compliance, and automated analysis of unstructured data like contracts and PDFs. However, to fully capitalise on the latest AI technologies, asset managers must first ensure their data architecture is clean, well-governed, and interoperable.
Operationalising AI for Asset and Alternative Managers
The realities of deploying AI in asset management were front and centre, discussed by some of the most qualified voices in the industry. In one panel on AI in asset management, it was agreed that today’s AI tools deliver the most value in short, self-contained tasks. From automating client onboarding to parsing compliance documents, AI is already outperforming humans in repetitive, rules-based activities.
But challenges remain. Aashish Mehta, CEO of nRoad, a Linedata company, outlined three critical barriers to enterprise AI adoption: compliance, culture, and cost. In regulated environments, the risk of a mistake is too high, and the cost of computing and oversight can escalate quickly if not managed carefully.
Breakout Sessions: Compliance, Co-Sourcing, and the Front Office
Alongside the keynotes, LDX featured targeted breakout sessions offering deeper dives into specialised areas.
In an investment compliance roundtable, speakers showcased AI-powered compliance tools, including automated onboarding workflows that reduce manual steps without compromising audit trails and natural language query bots for plain-English compliance checks. Attendees gained real insight into how AI can help large firms standardise rules, reduce complexity, and retain critical institutional knowledge.
Linedata’s platform strategy was set out, discussing Mosaic, a configurable fixed-income platform built to handle price transparency, inventory management, and market structure complexity and Optima, a back-office solution offering unified visibility across fund operations.
Attendees also got a sneak preview of Linedata’s new Global Services offering led out of London, which will offer a co-sourced, tech-enabled model that helps asset managers scale operations, embed automation, and free up internal teams to focus on higher-value activities.
Transparency, Transformation, and Playing the Long Game
LDX Northern Europe 2025 sent a clear signal that experimentation is over, and the asset management industry is now focused on execution, scale, and value.
In his closing remarks, Beattie reaffirmed Linedata’s commitment to transparency and long-term value creation. “At Linedata, transparency is at the heart of everything we do. We’re in it for the long game, making investments today that will deliver value for our clients for the next 10 years and beyond.”
As asset managers navigate retailisation, operational complexity, and rising regulatory expectations, they must move fast, partner smart, and build on strong data foundations to succeed.
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