Ghost Stories #97: From mechanical work to judgement in portfolio management - reallocating human effort with AI

At Forvis Mazars in South Africa, the team is actively working on AI-driven solutions for clients.

Shane Cooper (Head of Digital Advisory) is spearheading this effort, with one of the applications of this technology being in the portfolio management space. Institutional investors with complex structures face multiple challenges in managing their investments. As Shane explains in this podcast, it's an operating model problem rather than a software problem - but AI can help.

Rishi Juta (Director of Corporate Finance) joined this discussion to deliver insight into real-world applications across due diligence and risk management. It's all about transforming unstructured data and commentary into useful information for decision-making.

This is an excellent introduction to the technology that Forvis Mazars in South Africa is developing for institutional clients.

Topics covered in this podcast:

• The shift from mechanical work to judgement work - and why it changes the entire process of portfolio oversight.
• Why unstructured data (like management commentary and board‑pack narratives) often tells you more than the numbers.
• How “intelligent ingestion” lets AI chew through PDFs, emails, scans, and commentary like a grown‑up sorting out a toddler’s plate of vegetables.
• Early‑warning risk signals across a portfolio: covenant pressure, reporting behaviour, management tone, governance drift, sector stress and more.
• How this tech is being built specifically for regulated environments - IFRS, GRAP, scenario planning, traceability, explainability and all the governance that institutions actually need.
• Why large‑scale portfolios guarantee that humans will miss something - and how an AI layer can stop the rot early, while still taking advantage of having a human in the loop.

If you would like to learn more about this technology, connect with Shane Cooper or Rishi Juta on LinkedIn. For more information on AI-specific applications, you'll find Shane's contact details on the Forvis Mazars website.