Generative artificial intelligence is continuing its rise within the wealth management industry, even surpassing cloud technology in terms of impact, according to the latest research from Broadridge Financial Solutions.
Broadridge’s sixth annual Digital Transformation and Next-Gen Technology Study surveyed more than 900 financial services technology and operations leaders across wealth management, capital markets, and asset management. The study found that generative AI is becoming key to day-to-day operations.
Some 28 percent of respondents cited generative AI as having the greatest impact on their business, an increase of 17 percentage points on the prior year's study. Cloud technology, in contrast, was cited by 21 percent of respondents, down from 31 percent in the 2025 study.
Cybersecurity was identified as the most impactful technology by 23 percent of those surveyed, up from 13 percent in last year’s study, while tokenization garnered 3 percent of responses, the same as it did in 2025. Agentic AI, a new option for 2026, was cited by 8 percent of respondents.
The report identified tokenization, boosted by cryptocurrency, as another “megatrend,” with more than half of firms making moderate to large investments in tokenization and digital asset infrastructure.
“The acceleration of generative AI is foundational to how firms operate, compete, and serve clients. By moving beyond simple content generation to intelligent workflow execution, AI is reshaping day-to-day operations,” Germán Soto Sanchez, chief product and strategy officer at Broadridge told InvestmentNews. At the same time, “tokenization is evolving from experimental concept to enterprise execution—re-architecting the infrastructure of global finance to unlock atomic settlement, 24/7 liquidity, and new distribution models for the next generation," he added.
The global fintech provider’s research comes at a time when there is plenty of buzz around generative AI. Earlier this year, for example, broker-dealer Raymond James Financial, Inc. (Ticker: RJF) unveiled a new proprietary agent that harnesses generative AI.
In a recent study from Morningstar, a growing number of advisors surveyed said they expect generative AI to have a large impact on the industry. However, there was also a degree of unease about the technology – while more than one-third of respondents to the Morningstar study saw generative AI as a way to boost efficiency, nearly half are unsure whether it will be more of a help or be a threat to their practice.
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