Inside WealthTech – from the technology powering the advisor’s stack to the WealthTech companies defining the industry, we deliver the stories and strategies behind smarter advice. Each episode features candid conversations with industry leaders about the technologies, ideas, and partnerships transforming the way advisors serve clients, grow their practices, and redefine financial outcomes.
In this episode, filmed live at Schwab Impact 2025, Envestnet’s Aaron Bauer, Head, Custodian Strategy, and Blake Wood, Head of Strategic Partnerships, sit down with Amar Ahluwalia, Co-founder and CEO of OneVest. Together, they unpack how AI is moving from feature to foundation, how advisors can deliver personalized experiences at scale, and why connected data remains the industry’s most persistent challenge.
As artificial intelligence becomes embedded across financial services, the biggest shift in wealth management is not the emergence of new tools, but the transformation of the technology foundation advisors rely on every day. At Envestnet, AI is not a stand‑alone feature. It is built directly into the platform, connecting data, workflows, and decision‑making across the advisor experience.
Read on for a snapshot of the conversation, or watch the full episode here.
From stand-alone AI tools to embedded AI in wealth management technology
While AI is one of the most talked-about trends in the wealth management industry, the defining change is not the technology itself, but where it lives inside the advisor tech stack.
“What you're starting to see is the separation of AI as individual tools and AI becoming more embedded and invisible in the actual platform itself,” says Ahluwalia.
What separates wealthtech platforms that create durable value from those hitting table stake boundaries, is that they’re embedding AI into the infrastructure around operations, workflows, reconciliation, and reporting, rather than layering it on as a separate capability.
OneVest has put this principle into action by integrating AI directly into their wealth operating system to help advisors manage prospect and client relationships, reduce administrative work, and streamline complex workflows. OneVest has introduced its Agentic Wealth Operating System; a unified intelligence layer that proactively connects advisors, operations teams, and clients. Envestnet Data Solutions takes a similar platform‑level approach, embedding AI directly into advisor workflows to surface meaningful insights, reduce friction, and support better decision‑making at scale.
“The true power of AI is around process optimization, enhancement of journeys, and weaving it into the workflows of the platform itself.”
Interconnected platforms drive powerful data insights
Personalization is another key trend in wealth management, but driving a personalized client experience is nearly impossible without optimized data.
“The biggest obstacle and the biggest challenge, honestly, is still data,” says Ahluwalia.
Many firms today have opaque data structures and siloed data. While firms may have data lakes in place for storing data, these data lakes aren’t always connected to the right data centers or data structures. As a result, the data can’t be fully harmonized, visualized, or monetized.
To make full use of their data, firms need to move from fragmented, legacy architectures to modular, intelligent, and interconnected platforms that enable data to be leveraged by AI. Envestnet’s Insights AI is built for this, helping advisors detect patterns, changes, and opportunities across client data at scale, directly within their existing workflows. Similarly, OneVest’s AI-native operating system has an intelligent control plane for data, decisions, and action across the entire wealth stack.
“Without quality data, you can’t drive scale or personalization or optimization.”
Ultimately, the power of AI in financial advising is the promise of personalization at scale. This only gets realized when the underlying data is clean, connected, and actionable. Without connected data, even the most intelligent tools can’t do their job.
Balancing customization with standardization
The key to building a modular platform is knowing where to standardize and where to stay flexible. For Ahluwalia, the answer comes down to scale, and it starts with thinking in layers.
He notes the front end – the advisor and client-facing experience – should remain flexible, because it drives personalization and enables firms to cater to the segments they serve.
The backend is where standardization does the heavy lifting – orchestrating data flows, connecting pipelines, and standardizing documentation and process infrastructure to enable true scalability.
”Tomorrow’s advisors will want to tweak the experience for different client segments using conversational AI.”
Advisors need reliable data in order to adopt alternatives
The conversation also covered alternatives – a space that's seen a surge of interest but has historically been bogged down by manual processes, paper-heavy workflows, and unreliable data.
Once again, data is a determining factor. Firms that can access clean, reliable data on alternative investments are better positioned to offer personalized portfolio construction that blends traditional and alternative strategies to meet clients’ unique needs.
More alternatives, like interval funds, are now available as publicly traded products, making them easier to access, more transparent, and simpler to administer than traditional GP/LP structures. This enables advisors to bring institutional-caliber investment strategies to a much broader range of clients.
Envestnet’s Unified Managed Account platform supports this type of sophisticated, multi-asset portfolio construction, giving advisors the infrastructure to incorporate alternatives without adding operational complexity.
“Firms that have the ability to get good quality data are going to be able to drive personalization at the portfolio level, with a balanced allocation that includes alternatives.”
The intelligent back office, powered by AI
With AI evolving rapidly and adoption accelerating, Ahluwalia believes the back office will look fundamentally different in five years – and he’s optimistic about where it’s headed.
"The back office of the future is really an intelligent back office," he says. "It’ll be a collaboration of intelligent AI supporting rock stars from a back office perspective.”
As AI absorbs high-volume, repetitive work – streamlining workflows, optimizing processes, and increasing operational efficiency, the back office can become leaner and more capable of delivering better service and more impactful capabilities for advisors. The OneVest Agentic Wealth OS takes it one step further. It does more than assist, it completes workflows, orchestrates oversight, and delivers real results.
“I'm bullish on the intelligent back office. I think you're already seeing it. It's already happening. It'll be much more prevalent in the next five years.”
Rapid-fire reflections
As part of Inside WealthTech’s speed round, Ahluwalia offers his quick takes on topics reshaping wealth management.
- AI and advisors – CoPilot, disruptor, or hype? “CoPilot.”
- Client acquisition in 10 years: centered around porterhouse or podcasts? “The mechanism for acquisition and engagement will change – it will be highly digital and engaging. But advice will still be built on trust.”
- Influencers – threat, fad, or new pipeline? “Pipeline. Especially for acquisitions.”
- One thing you’d change today about global wealth management? “Legacy technology has got to go. The old way of doing stuff is not the new way.”
Wealthtech at its best, is about lifting up the advisor. That means building game-changing technology that’s simple to use and smart enough to handle the operational heavy lifting, so advisors can focus on spending time with clients, building relationships, and delivering advice that makes a difference.
Stay Inside WealthTech
Watch the full episode of Inside WealthTech featuring Amar Ahluwalia to hear more about how OneVest is helping advisors build smarter, more scalable platforms and leave legacy technology behind for good.
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Learn more about Envestnet’s wealth management platform and how it turns connected data and embedded AI into more meaningful outcomes.
