JPMorgan's wealth and wealth management division will end its long-standing practice of using outside proxy advisors to advise on shareholder voting decisions.
The bank said it was “the first major investment firm to completely eliminate reliance on outside proxy advisors in its U.S. voting process,” according to excerpts of an internal memo obtained by Business Insider.
A spokesperson for JPMorgan Asset Management told Business Insider that the changes to the U.S. proxy voting process are scheduled to take full effect from April 1, following a transition period in the first quarter of this year.
The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
JPMorgan's wealth management division holds $7 trillion in client assets and is given the power to vote on thousands of shareholder decisions, including general governance decisions beyond financial matters. It is common practice in the industry to rely on proxy advisory firms to collect data, provide advice, and provide voting recommendations.
The practice has drawn criticism from the Trump administration, which signed an executive order in December calling for increased oversight of the proxy advisory industry.
“Proxy advisors regularly use their considerable authority to advance and prioritize radical, politically motivated agendas,” the executive order reads.
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, two proxy advisory firms previously used by JPMorgan, were named in the Trump administration's December executive order.
An ISS spokesperson declined to comment on the news that JPMorgan is cutting ties with the proxy advisory firm. But a spokesperson said: “We are proud of our 40-year track record of serving the global institutional investor community” and will continue to do so as we head into the 2026 annual meeting season. Glass Lewis did not respond to requests for comment.
The bank said in a memo that the move away from being a proxy agency strengthens JPMorgan's “unwavering commitment to leveraging our information advantages and voting only in our clients' best interests.”
The wealth and asset management division is launching an in-house AI platform called Proxy IQ to support shareholder decision-making in place of external human advisors, according to the memo.
“ProxyIQ extends the high standards of independent analysis that our portfolio managers, research analysts and stewardship teams have always applied to every vote, drawing on the same in-house expertise to cover every aspect of the voting process, down to the smallest detail, including data and research selection,” JPMorgan said in a note.
The tool will be able to aggregate and analyze proprietary data from more than 3,000 annual company meetings.
JPMorgan has an $18 billion technology budget, and CEO Jamie Dimon has previously said he intends to win the AI arms race.
