No AI, No Future? Why India’s wealth managers must adapt

India’s wealth management industry is entering a phase where technology, artificial intelligence, and platform consolidation will determine the long-term winners, according to Aprita Vinay, Senior Managing Director and CEO of Spark Capital Private Wealth Management. Speaking to businessline, Vinay said the traditional wealth management model as a standalone advisory business is rapidly evolving into an integrated ecosystem that combines wealth management, investment banking, asset management, succession planning, family governance, and alternative investments.

Over the last three years, Spark has grown its assets under management from about Rs 3,000 crore to more than Rs 52,000 crore. Vinay said the firm’s strategy has been centered on building a consolidated platform rather than offering isolated products or services. “Wealth management is an access to a relationship. What you do with that relationship depends on the depth of your capabilities,” she said. Rather than treating wealth management and investment banking as separate businesses linked only through cross-selling, Spark has sought to integrate the two more closely, enabling deeper engagement with entrepreneurs and promoter-led companies.

“The most valuable conversations with wealthy clients are no longer limited to portfolio returns. Increasingly, promoters are seeking advice on business growth, monetisation strategies, family governance, succession planning, tax structuring, private markets, offshore diversification, and inter-generational wealth transfer,” said Vinay. This has made investment banking capabilities a critical component of modern wealth management platforms.

She believes firms that continue to operate in silos risk losing relevance. “The client is labelled as a wealth client, an investment banking client, an AMC client, and a brokerage client. The challenge is whether you can create a platform where all four businesses speak to each other,” she said.

Artificial intelligence is a key driver of this transformation. Vinay believes firms that fail to adopt AI risk becoming irrelevant. “Any wealth management firm that does not use AI will have much lower chances of survival. Any relationship manager that does not use AI will also have much lower chances of survival,” she said. Spark is building a unified digital platform and a “super app” that will integrate broking, wealth management, and account aggregation capabilities, enabling hyper-personalised recommendations based on clients’ complete financial profiles.

According to her, AI is already changing the business’s economics by automating data gathering, portfolio analysis, and client-servicing functions that previously required large teams. The objective is to move towards a “segment of one”, where advice is tailored to individual clients rather than broad customer categories.

India has become too important for global wealth managers to ignore, driven by the rapid growth in the country’s high-net-worth population and entrepreneurial wealth creation. Several international wealth management firms have struggled to scale in India, often because they imported overseas business models that didn’t suit local entrepreneurs and family businesses. However, she expects many of them to return through partnerships, joint ventures and acquisitions rather than building operations from scratch.

At the same time, domestic firms are increasingly bringing investment banking, wealth management, private assets, and family-office services under one platform, a model Vinay believes better serves the complex needs of wealthy Indian families. She also sees family offices emerging as a significant opportunity. Wealthy families are increasingly seeking institutional-quality investment capabilities while retaining customised advice and governance support. As inter-generational wealth transfers gather pace and promoter-led businesses monetise assets, demand for both single-family and multi-family office solutions is expected to rise.

Looking ahead, Vinay believes technology, AI and integrated advisory capabilities will reshape the competitive landscape. “The future belongs to firms that can combine wealth management, investment banking, asset management and family-office capabilities into one seamless platform,” she said. “The businesses (wealth firm) that remain fragmented will find it increasingly difficult to stay relevant.”

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