CEO Franklin Templeton said all ETFs and mutual funds will be included in the blockchain.

Jenny Johnson, CEO and President of Franklin Templeton, a financial firm that manages $1.6 trillion in assets, recently spoke with Bloomberg anchor David Westland at the 27th Milken Institute Global Conference in California. In an interview with David Westland, he reiterated his support for blockchain.

Among the hot topics the two discussed, Johnson had a lot to say about tokenization and generative artificial intelligence.

Tokenization

When asked how Franklin Templeton benefited from tokenization, Johnson was quick to respond. “First of all, I am a huge fan of blockchain and technology.”

She described a situation where the company conducted parallel experiments to process account records using both traditional methods and blockchain for six to eight months. As Johnson said, the results have been very positive. “We were surprised at how inexpensive it was to run on blockchain,” she said.

Johnson added:

“This is a very efficient technology, and we think it will open up many new investment opportunities. And frankly, I think eventually both ETFs and mutual funds will be on the blockchain.”

She attributed this prediction to the “enormous costs” associated with validating data between different systems. This is a problem that blockchain was intentionally designed to solve. Johnson noted that even after data is reconciled internally, financial institutions and stakeholders still need to verify data between external parties.

“With blockchain, there is only one source of truth,” she said.

According to Johnson, financial and time savings can lead to a wider variety of investment opportunities. She cited the use case of pop superstar Rhianna, who launched a series of 300 NFTs that gave owners a tiny percentage of royalties for one of the artist’s songs via a smart contract.

This is something Johnson has mentioned in the past. As Cointelegraph reported in October 2023, the CEO relayed Rhianna’s story in an interview with CNBC’s Delivering Alpha, where she discussed tokenization as “securitization on steroids.”

Generating AI

The conversation then shifted to generative artificial intelligence. Johnson acknowledges the usefulness of generative AI systems, but warns that they are “similar to a child getting an ‘A’ in English and an ‘F’ in math.”

The CEO noted that Franklin Templeton recently partnered with Microsoft to build an AI-based sales assistant, later adding that there are investment opportunities in this area. She also praised the potential of AI-based translation services to bridge language barriers in the financial sector.

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