The combined wealth of the world’s most affluent investors reached a record $98.3 trillion at the end of 2025, according to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2026: Wealth.AI. However, behind the strong macroeconomic performance lies a serious operational challenge: only 17% of wealthy clients rate their wealth management experience positively.
A failure to keep pace with technological change cost traditional market players approximately $1.5 trillion in assets between 2022 and 2025. This capital moved to more agile, specialised providers and WealthTech companies.
Changing client expectations and outdated IT systems are undermining customer loyalty and limiting the value of assets entrusted to traditional financial institutions. As many as 88% of wealthy clients work with several firms simultaneously, seeking better access to alternative investments and specialised services.
Moreover, 97% of firms in the sector continue to segment their clients almost exclusively according to wealth brackets, while 78% still use outdated, static risk profiles that fail to reflect the complex behaviours and motivations of today’s investors and decision-makers.
Technological shortcomings are also evident on the front line, among advisers who interact directly with clients. As many as 42% of surveyed clients complain that they have to repeat their investment objectives several times to employees of the same firm.
From a business perspective, 60% of surveyed executives acknowledge that this is the result of not having an integrated, company-wide view of client data.
“Responding to these challenges requires a fundamental transformation of operating models and the implementation of modern technologies. However, the revolution is not about replacing experts with algorithms. It is about using augmented intelligence — a data-driven infrastructure that supports and strengthens human decision-making,” said Piotr Siuda, Head of Financial Services at Capgemini Poland.
“Client advisers currently spend a great deal of time on routine operational tasks. Implementing automation tools based on artificial intelligence and advanced analytics could reduce this burden by approximately 50%. This would allow key human resources to be redirected towards proactive planning and relationship-building, supported by intelligent systems capable of identifying liquidity events or detecting changes in sentiment during conversations,” he explained.
Wealth managers must expand beyond investment advice
Firms must move beyond traditional investment advisory services by providing access to private markets, including through modern fund structures and tokenisation, as well as offering advanced tax, retirement and succession planning services.
Advisers can no longer focus solely on transactions. Their role increasingly involves coordinating and orchestrating resources across the entire organisation.
The data supports this strategy: 53% of high-net-worth individuals are more likely to recommend firms in which advisers effectively coordinate the work of different specialists.
Artificial intelligence now makes it possible to connect all data and workflows within a single technology layer. AI can create a unified view of each client, provide predictive recommendations and ensure that knowledge about client relationships remains the property of the firm rather than residing solely with individual advisers.
This approach nevertheless requires the consistent implementation of a human-in-the-loop strategy, ensuring that final decisions are always made by a qualified specialist.
Personalisation has become a business necessity
Delivering personalisation at scale has moved from being an aspiration to becoming a market necessity.
The World Wealth Report 2026 makes it clear that the gap between early innovators and organisations that delay incorporating modern technological intelligence into their operating models will continue to widen with each passing year.
Source: Managerplus.pl
