AI is transforming asset and wealth management

PwC’s 2023 Global Asset and Wealth Management Survey, which includes forecasts through 2027, paints a portrait of an industry in the throes of unprecedented change, driven by massive consolidation, market volatility and, not least of all, technological disruption. Among the survey’s most striking findings: a projected boom in robo-advice. The study predicts that assets managed by these algorithm-driven and increasingly AI-enabled digital platforms will surge to almost US$6 trillion by 2027, nearly double the figure for 2022. 

This trend signals a broader one across other aspects of the asset and wealth management (AWM) industry, with more managers experimenting with generative AI in the middle and back office, and using it to enhance trading strategies and analyse unstructured data.

Integrating AI and other rapidly evolving technologies into both office operations and market-facing services—and doing so quickly and responsibly—is essential for getting ahead of the curve. Industry leaders can start by:

• outsourcing non-client-facing, mid-office and back-office requirements to a managed services provider with the scale and resources to ensure that both tech platforms and the skills of the talent needed to run them are fully up to date.
• setting up innovation labs and sandbox trials that will allow for the development, testing and implementation of frontier technologies like blockchain-enabled tokenisation.
• broadening retail presence through AI and robo-advice to offer the kind of personalised solutions that would once have been reserved for high-net-worth clients, while recognising the need to develop a hybrid human and digital delivery model.
• managing AI risks among investors, employees and regulators by maintaining robust governance and data protection, while being responsive to concerns about data privacy, stewardship and unintended consequences.

Taken together, these moves represent the new face of AWM: tech-forward, customer-facing and empowered to operate across a wide range of asset types.