CEO Seth Bernstein and senior leaders at the firm have prioritized investments in quantitative tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence. These tools better allow investment teams to tailor strategies to individual clients at scale. Although customization is a popular initiative among the competition, AB is already one of the largest providers of custom target-date funds in the US, and its capabilities in managing and servicing municipal-bond separate accounts have vastly improved over the past several years. For example, the firm is one of only a few that offer tax-loss harvesting for municipal-bond SMAs in the US.
AB also continues to expand its product lineup. In 2022, it acquired CarVal Investors, a private credit manager, to round out its private offerings, and it is likely to introduce private credit interval funds. AB also has been launching active ETFs since 2022, including a variety of fixed-income and a couple of equity funds as well as an options-based and a thematic offering. Its traditional fund lineup shows some strength in large-cap growth stocks and fixed income, but performance overall has been lackluster. The US is by far its biggest market, but AB has a long history and some commercial success in the Asia-Pacific region.