Deutsche Bank Research Institute has a term for anyone with more than a billion seconds of life left in front of them: a "time billionaire." A billion seconds works out to roughly 31.5 years, and as Luke Templeman and Galina Pozdnyakova note in their July 22, 2026 report1, an expanding cohort of younger investors qualify. That matters, because the same cohort is asking for two things at once: more investment risk than they carry today, and more AI in the cockpit managing it for them.
The core question the authors set out to answer is whether AI is actually driving that risk appetite higher. Using proprietary survey data from Deutsche Bank's dbDataInsights team, they write that "both Americans and Britons under the age of 55 are particularly keen to increase (relative to today) both their risk tolerance and their dependence on AI to manage their portfolio," and that "the younger the age group, the more they say they will increase their risk over the coming 1, 3, and 5 years."
An Appetite for Risk That Defies the Moment
The first oddity the authors flag is timing. "At one level, it seems strange that six years into a decade that has been so volatile, people want to take more, not less, risk with their investments," they write, before showing that every age bracket up to 55 wants meaningfully more risk over one-, three-, and five-year horizons. The pattern is an age gradient: "the younger you are, the more likely you are to want to take even more investment risk in the future," most pronounced in the US, with the UK tracking the same shape.
Is AI the Trigger?
On the AI question specifically, the authors report that under-55s in both countries "expect to show a strong desire to move to an AI managed investment method over the next 1, 3, and 5 years," a shift "particularly aggressive in the US but still pronounced in the UK." Comfort with full automation is already high among the young: Americans under 34 favor letting AI execute trades on their behalf by a ratio of 10:1, while UK investors of the same age do so 3:1 — and "the ratio falls as people age."
Why would AI move the needle on risk tolerance at all? The authors' theory centers on friction. "AI may amplify risk appetite, particularly for young people, because it reduces the friction around decision-making," letting investors ask a tool to explain allocation or model scenarios, and "even if the output is imperfect, the interaction can create a sense of fluency" — which matters because "people are more likely to take action when a complex problem appears legible." They cite the World Economic Forum's finding that 45% of Gen-Z and millennials began investing in early adulthood, versus 15% of Gen X and boomers.
Aspiration Inflation and a Product of Environment
A second driver is cultural rather than technological. Templeman and Pozdnyakova point to research showing "one survey shows that Gen-Z thinks they need twice as much wealth and triple the annual salary as the previous generation to achieve 'financial success.'" They're careful not to treat this as youthful delusion in isolation: "young investors have been socialised as they came of age in a market culture shaped by mobile trading, social media, crypto assets, zero-commission brokerage, online financial influencers and rapid cycles of boom-and-bust narratives," a culture in which risk-taking is "discussed, compared, gamified and sometimes celebrated in digital communities," lowering "the emotional cost of failure." They invoke Mary Douglas's cultural theory of risk — that societies "classify, narrate and prioritise" hazards rather than simply discovering them — to frame risk appetite as partly manufactured by environment.
Perceived Safety and the Peltzman Effect
The most provocative section applies behavioral economics to markets. The authors invoke the Peltzman effect — the finding that "people can take greater risks if they know they are protected from downside risk," evidenced by drivers with more accidents in safer cars, more aggressive Nascar racing after HANS devices, and skydivers pushing limits as equipment improves. Applied to investing, they note every US market decline since 2008 has recovered to new highs relatively quickly, so "a generation of investors has now only ever experienced dips as buying opportunities" — unlike the drawdowns of the 1970s or 2000s. The result: Americans favor buying over selling equities during uncertainty 2:1; Britons, 2.5:1.
The Warning Signs
The authors close with genuine caution, not just description. Three flashpoints stand out: "US margin debt has pushed to over 4.5% of GDP," above 2021, 2007, and 2000 peaks; speculation has broadened into same-day options, leveraged ETFs, meme assets, and prediction markets; and household savings rates are falling. As they put it in conclusion, "it is concerning that perceived consequences may have declined faster than the actual potential consequences," and "AI can widen this gap if it gives users the impression that risks are fully understood or controllable." Their closing prescription: "younger investors are unlikely to be persuaded by generic warnings about risk," so AI "should be framed as a support mechanism rather than a substitute for suitability, behavioural coaching and long-term planning."
Five Takeaways for Advisors and Investors
- The risk-appetite shift is real and age-graded — younger clients across both the US and UK are telling advisors, in survey data, that they want materially more risk over the next 1, 3, and 5 years, not less.
- AI adoption in portfolio management is accelerating fastest among the young — with US under-34s already 10:1 in favor of automated trade execution, advisors should expect AI-delegation requests to grow, not plateau.
- The real driver may be perceived safety, not conviction — the Peltzman-effect framing suggests today's risk-taking reflects confidence that downside is cushioned (post-2008 policy response, diversified low-cost products), a belief that can be wrong precisely when it matters most.
- Leverage and speculation metrics are flashing amber — margin debt above 4.5% of GDP, same-day options, and leveraged ETFs are the concrete manifestations advisors should monitor in client accounts.
- Generic risk warnings won't land with this cohort — the report's own conclusion is that advice must become "both more digital and more behavioural," using AI as a coaching layer rather than resisting its adoption outright.
Footnote:
1 Templeman, Luke, and Galina Pozdnyakova. "Time Billionaires Want More Risk. Is AI to Blame?" Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 22 July 2026.
