Senior marketing, communications, PR, brand, and digital leaders from India's wealth and asset management industry met at a Hubbis roundtable lunch in Mumbai to discuss how the marketing function is changing. The practitioner-led discussion, held in August 2026, examined AI adoption, digital engagement, the reassessment of traditional PR, and what wealth managers need to do differently as clients become more informed and digitally enabled.
AI adoption in India's wealth sector now extends far beyond copy generation. Firms are using it to support relationship managers (RMs), identify prospects, monitor markets and competitors, improve search visibility, accelerate regulated workflows, and extract more value from client data. At the same time, marketing is being pushed closer to the commercial engine of the business, taking on greater responsibility for sales enablement, client intelligence, distribution, and measurable outcomes.
AI Turns Marketing Into a Business-Building Function
Participants described markedly different stages of AI adoption. Some organisations are still experimenting with individual platforms for drafting, research, design, and competitive analysis. Others have embedded enterprise tools and built workflows around AI across multiple business functions.
The more advanced examples went well beyond productivity. Firms described AI supporting RM activity, prospecting, institutional client memory, internal analytics, and management decision-making. One organisation created a personal AI environment containing performance reviews, team objectives, and business metrics, allowing it to operate as a management sounding board.
"Saving time is useful, but the bigger opportunity is being able to build things that directly improve the business," said one participant. "Marketing should not only communicate what everybody else has created."
PR Gets Reassessed Around Credibility and Outcomes
Public relations remains an important part of the mix, but participants noted an unresolved tension between prestige and measurable distribution. Established financial media continues to carry considerable credibility for signalling authority, while digital media offers broader distribution and more immediate engagement data.
Measurement remains imperfect. The discussion covered share of voice, engagement, search visibility, and return on objectives as metrics, rather than expecting every communications activity to generate directly attributable return on investment.
"PR is not performance marketing," said one participant. "The more useful question is whether it achieved the objective, reached the people who mattered and strengthened the narrative we wanted to own."
Marketing, RMs, and Client Data Are Moving Closer Together
For most firms, a large share of marketing activity is effectively sales enablement. Participants described producing customised portfolio reviews, adviser profiles, client communications, and content libraries for RMs. This matters in a market where RM movement is a concern - when advisers leave, firms risk losing revenue and knowledge about the client relationship.
Several participants emphasised the need to institutionalise client information. One firm maps clients to a broader investment team rather than a single RM. Others are centralising information on client interests, behaviour, and engagement history so knowledge stays within the organisation.
"An RM may lead the relationship, but the institution has to retain the memory," said one participant. "Otherwise every departure creates a gap in what the firm knows about the client."
AI Creates a New Brand-Control Problem
The ability to generate polished material quickly means people outside marketing can now become content producers. Participants described RMs creating presentations, graphics, and client-facing materials without much regard for brand guidelines. Generative AI increases the scale of that problem because production capacity is no longer the constraint.
Several organisations now require client-facing materials to pass through marketing before distribution. Others are building templates, approved workflows, and governance frameworks to let employees move fast without compromising the brand.
"The problem is not that people can suddenly create things themselves," said one participant. "It is that they can create something in five minutes and assume that means it is ready for a client."
Search Behaviour Is Changing and Content Volume Is Not Differentiation
Prospective clients are increasingly using AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to ask conversational questions about wealth managers and advisory providers. This has prompted interest in answer engine optimisation (AEO) and generative engine optimisation (GEO) alongside traditional search engine optimisation.
"Search is becoming a conversation," said one participant. "If a prospect asks an AI platform who can solve a particular problem, we need to understand whether our expertise is visible in that process."
Firms now recognise that publishing more content is not the same as better marketing. A 30-page market outlook may contain excellent analysis and go unread. A two-page summary or 60-second video can generate more engagement. The advantage comes from making the right thing easier to consume and delivering it when the client actually needs it.
Digital Scale Still Needs Human Advice
The growth of digital engagement does not imply a fully automated wealth proposition. One participant described a model where most client interaction happens remotely and some clients never meet their adviser physically - but a human RM remains responsible for the relationship. Participants saw this as crucial during market stress.
Clients already upload portfolios into AI tools, question recommendations, and compare advice against outside information. That reduces the information advantage financial institutions historically enjoyed. But it does not replace human judgment.
"You can automate analysis, but there are moments when the client wants somebody accountable on the other side of the conversation," said one participant.
Compliance is becoming an AI workflow. One firm has built an internal AI tool that pre-screens concepts and marketing content before formal compliance review, which has materially shortened turnaround times. It is not designed to replace compliance, but to reduce avoidable back-and-forth by addressing recurring requirements before material reaches the formal stage.
Why this matters for marketers
The marketing function is moving beyond brand and content into core business operations. Marketing teams that build skills in AI workflows, client data, and performance measurement - without abandoning editorial judgment - will be positioned to influence commercial strategy rather than just communications. Their success will be judged by outcomes like assets under management and conversion rates rather than impressions alone.
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