98% of wealth firms are pursuing AI, but fewer than 7% are building agentic AI: HCLTech study

Artificial intelligence has moved firmly onto the agenda of global wealth management firms, but the industry is still at an early stage of adopting agentic AI, according to a new HCLTech study. While 98% of leadership teams are actively pursuing an AI agenda, only slightly more than 7% are actively building agentic AI capabilities.

The findings are part of HCLTech’s synthetic research report, Hidden In Pl(AI)n Sight, based on 1,066 AI personas modelled on senior wealth management decision-makers across 17 global markets. The research was conducted in partnership with Evidenza, with industry practitioners, researchers and subject-matter experts involved in designing and validating the study.

The gap between broad AI adoption and agentic AI development highlights a key challenge for the industry: moving from experimenting with AI to redesigning how wealth management businesses operate.

AI adoption is not enough

According to the study, 84% of wealth management firms believe their operating models require fundamental redesign to fully capture the potential of AI.

However, HCLTech said many firms continue to approach AI primarily as an efficiency tool rather than as a way to create new sources of growth, revenue and client value.

The study identifies three “blind spots” holding firms back.

The first is an ambition blind spot. Firms recognise the need for transformation but continue to fund AI largely around efficiency gains.

The second is an execution blind spot, where investment in technology is not matched by investment in proprietary client data and insights.

The third is a strategy blind spot. Firms track AI adoption but do not sufficiently measure whether it is translating into growth, revenue and improved client value.

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Revenue remains a missing metric

The disconnect is particularly visible in how firms measure the success of AI investments. HCLTech said that although 84% of leaders want fundamental operating-model redesign, only 12% are measuring the new revenue that such redesign should generate.

This suggests that AI programmes can be progressing without firms having a clear commercial framework for determining their impact.

The study also found that executives consider first-party and behavioural data more valuable as a competitive differentiator than technology infrastructure, cloud platforms or AI partnerships.

Nearly 80% of respondents believe future industry leaders will be those that can effectively combine AI, human expertise and ecosystem partners.

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Regional divide in AI readiness

The research points to significant differences across regions. APAC recorded the highest confidence at 89%, followed by North America at 84%. Europe, at 38.3%, showed a substantially lower level of confidence in AI readiness and transformation.

HCLTech said the findings point to a wealth management industry entering a new phase in which the competitive advantage may depend less on simply deploying AI and more on combining it with proprietary client knowledge and human expertise.

The study itself uses synthetic research, with AI-generated personas providing scale and speed while human experts were involved in research design, contextualisation and validation.

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