Global wealth management is entering a defining phase in 2025-2026 as firms scale their businesses amid rising complexity. Despite favorable market conditions, wealth managers continue to face margin pressure, higher client expectations, and increasing operational costs.
With major players such as UBS managing more than $6.1 trillion in assets and global assets under management projected to reach $139 trillion, execution discipline has become critical.
Wealth management remains strategically important for banks due to its stable fee-based revenues and durable client relationships. In response, leading firms are aligning around a common set of priorities that will shape competitive differentiation in the coming years.
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Top 5 strategic trends to watch in 2026
1. Boosting advisor productivity
Wealth managers are redefining the advisor role to enable higher productivity and scalability. The focus is on augmenting advisors with automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) so they can concentrate on complex planning and relationship management rather than administrative tasks.
Morgan Stanley, for example, has deployed AI tools across its wealth unit, with broad advisor adoption. These tools support research discovery and automate client meeting documentation.
By reducing time spent on routine activities, firms aim to expand advisor capacity without compromising service quality. This is increasingly important as experienced advisors remain scarce and expensive. Productivity gains are not an end goal in isolation. They serve as a foundation for delivering more personalized and timely client experiences at scale.
2. Elevating client experience and personalization
Personalization has become a core performance metric in wealth management. High net worth and mass affluent clients expect advice, products, and engagement to reflect their individual goals and life events. To meet these expectations, firms are investing in data platforms that consolidate client information and enable analytics-driven decision making. These platforms support tailored portfolios, targeted content, and next best action recommendations.
UBS, for instance, is investing in a modern digital banking platform with advanced mobile and AI capabilities to strengthen client centricity. Bank of America has integrated banking , investing, and retirement services into a single application to deliver a more unified experience. As personalization expectations rise, so do the cost and complexity of delivery, pushing firms to reassess operating models and technology foundations.
3. Improving operational efficiency and profitability
Sustained margin pressure has made efficiency a strategic priority across the industry. Leading firms are simplifying product portfolios, exiting non-core markets, and redesigning operating models for scale. Goldman Sachs has withdrawn from consumer banking activities that failed to meet profitability expectations. Merrill Lynch has outlined initiatives to increase recurring fee revenues and deepen cross selling across banking and wealth products.
For many institutions, durable efficiency gains depend on deeper automation and analytics adoption across front, middle, and back-office operations, supported by modern data infrastructure.
4. Accelerating digital transformation and AI adoption
Digital transformation efforts are accelerating, with AI moving from experimentation to enterprise deployment. Wealth managers are investing in analytics driven personalization, automated advisory workflows, modern data platforms, and stronger governance frameworks. UBS has appointed a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and has deployed hundreds of AI use cases across the organization. HSBC has introduced AI tools for private bankers to improve access to research and market insights.
Firms such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill have also emphasized governance, controlled testing, and approval processes to ensure responsible use. As these capabilities mature, digital and analytics investments are increasingly viewed as strategic levers to grow client assets, not just efficiency tools.
5. Expanding client assets and market share
Growth in mass affluent and high net worth segments continues to drive competition for client assets. Leading firms are pursuing organic and inorganic strategies to scale their wealth franchises.
Common approaches include acquisitions, cross selling within retail banking bases, and expansion into alternative investments. Goldman Sachs has pursued acquisitions in asset management and exchange traded funds. JPMorgan is leveraging its retail base to grow digital investing adoption. Bank of America and Charles Schwab have expanded access to alternative investments to attract new assets and deepen client relationships.
What does this transformation mean for the wealth management ecosystem?
The convergence of these trends is reshaping sourcing strategies across wealth management. Firms are moving away from isolated technology purchases toward outcome-oriented sourcing models that support long term transformation.
Enterprises increasingly recognize that no single provider can address advisor enablement, personalization, analytics, operations, and growth needs. As a result, sourcing strategies are shifting toward curated ecosystems that combine core platforms, specialized capabilities, and managed services, supported by strong integration and governance.
Sourcing decisions are also becoming more outcome focused. Wealth managers are prioritizing measurable business results such as higher advisor capacity, lower cost to serve, faster onboarding, and improved asset growth, rather than feature depth alone. At the same time, scalability and future readiness have become key evaluation criteria, driving preference for modular platforms and partners with global delivery capabilities.
Technology sourcing is now tightly linked to operating model design. Firms are aligning sourcing decisions with advisor segmentation, service tiering, and delivery models, requiring closer collaboration across business, technology, operations, and procurement teams. As automation and analytics become embedded in critical processes, expectations around governance, transparency, and accountability are also increasing.
Implications for technology, consulting, and service providers
As wealth managers pursue more integrated and outcome-led operating models, expectations from technology, consulting, and service providers are converging. Enterprises are moving away from fragmented sourcing of point solutions and project-based engagements toward platforms and partnerships that can support long-term transformation across advisor workflows, client engagement, data, and operations.
Wealth managers are increasingly favoring integrated platforms that deliver measurable outcomes rather than standalone capabilities. AI is no longer a standalone feature but foundational infrastructure, requiring enterprise-grade governance, explainability, and scalability.
For technology providers, this translates into:
- A shift from point solutions toward integrated platforms spanning advisor workflows, client engagement, data, and operations
- Greater emphasis on enterprise-grade artificial intelligence with built-in governance, explainability, and scalability
- Growing importance of data unification, interoperability, open architectures, and clear data lineage
- Increased focus on speed to value, with preference for solutions that can be deployed quickly and scaled incrementally
- Rising need to support alternative assets and ecosystem-based models as private markets and partner-driven distribution expand
At the same time, margin pressure is accelerating demand for managed services and business process as a service models across operations, compliance, reporting, and data management. Wealth managers are shifting from project-based engagements to long-term transformation partnerships, favoring providers that can combine advisory, implementation, and managed services aligned with productivity, efficiency, and growth objectives.
For consulting and service providers, expectations are evolving toward:
- A move away from one-time projects toward long-term transformation partnerships
- Rising demand for managed services and utility-based delivery models across core operational and support functions
- Greater expectation to orchestrate complex multi-provider environments, including platform integration, data flow management, and governance
- Increasing accountability for business outcomes such as cost reduction, faster onboarding, improved advisor productivity, and reduced operational risk
- Sustained demand for embedded compliance, data governance, and auditability as AI adoption scales
Taken together, these shifts mark a clear inflection point for wealth management. As firms move beyond isolated digital initiatives toward intelligent and orchestrated operating models, success in 2026 will depend on execution discipline, ecosystem alignment, and the ability to scale innovation responsibly.
If you found this blog insightful, check out the Asset and Wealth Management (AWM) Customer Experience Orchestration Products (CXOP) PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2025 – Everest Group Research Portal, which explores how technology platforms are enabling intelligent, orchestrated customer experiences across the wealth management value chain.
To learn more, contact Ronak Doshi ([email protected]), Kriti Gupta ([email protected]), Sakshi Maurya ([email protected]), and Ketan Kumar ([email protected]).