Artificial intelligence (AI) is the power of a machine to copy intelligent human behaviour. AI technology has made substantial progress over the decades, as evidence by the continuous increase in the number of vendors of AI solutions. The financial services industry has also begun to see AI vendors with solutions focused on wealth management, a sector that traditionally relies heavily on the relationship of clients with their human advisors.

These AI vendors are appearing at a time when wealth management is undergoing change on a global level. Incumbents and industry newcomers are witnessing the strong shift to digital in retail banking spill over into wealth management.1 Whether this shift in wealth management will continue to be in the form of customer experience and digital onboarding – or extend to portfolio management and risk – remains to be seen.

We believe that the advisor-client relationship remains the cornerstone of wealth management, and we don’t anticipate a gloomy future where person-less organizations make all decisions with machines. However, industry players cannot ignore the AI solutions entering the wealth management market and should consider some of these solutions and how they impact advisors, advice itself and clients.