The asset and wealth management industry faces a growth challenge: Much of its recent expansion has come from rising markets and currency swings rather than new client money. At the same time, fees remain under pressure, while industry profits are increasingly concentrated in a narrow set of products, sales channels and capabilities.
Leaders in the next phase of growth will likely be firms that offer differentiated products, sharpen distribution, deepen client relationships, expand advisor capacity and scale without costs rising in step, according to a joint report from Morgan Stanley Research and consulting firm Oliver Wyman. The analysis draws on industry data and more than 15 interviews with senior executives at firms managing more than $45 trillion in combined assets under management.
“We see two technology shifts—artificial intelligence and tokenization—widening the gap between winners and laggards,” says Michael Cyprys, Head of U.S. Brokers, Asset Managers and Exchanges for Morgan Stanley Research. “The most successful wealth and asset managers will be those that are able to translate a deeper understanding of the major trends shaping the industry into the right strategic bets and operating models that don’t just get them to the head of the pack but allow them to break free entirely.”
Breaking free, Cyprys adds, means having the right mix of products, clients, investment vehicles and the ability to customize.
For asset managers, outgrowing the market will require distinctive investing and deal-sourcing skills, as well as the ability to package those skills into solutions and reach faster-growing sales channels.
Wealth managers will need to win more new business and turn more of their revenue into profit. Successful firms should combine deeper client relationships and stronger inflows of new client assets with greater advisor capacity and a business model that can grow without costs rising as fast.
A Strong Growth Outlook, With a Catch
Asset and wealth managers entered 2026 at record levels. Global assets under management (AUM) rose 15% in 2025 to $159 trillion, while household financial wealth increased 8.2% to $341 trillion. Morgan Stanley Research and Oliver Wyman expect AUM to grow by an average of 9% annually through 2030, with household financial wealth increasing by an average of 7% annually.
Despite the strong projected growth, success will increasingly depend on how well firms use AI and tokenization.
Financial services firms already use AI, but the analysis suggests that leading firms will distinguish themselves by turning productivity gains into higher revenue and wider profit margins.
“Doing so could require a fundamental reset of how businesses are run and organized, with AI embedded in repeatable workflows built on proprietary data and expertise,” says Betsy Graseck, Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research.
Tokenization, meanwhile, is moving from experimentation toward real-world utility.
“Firms that focus on products where digital rails address clear client needs—particularly in cash management, collateral and distribution—could gain a competitive advantage,” Graseck says. “Building partnerships and access to digital distribution will also be important as client adoption of tokenized products grows.”
Tokenization Gets Practical
Tokenized real-world assets—i.e., traditional assets such as stocks, bonds or funds whose ownership is recorded on blockchain-based digital rails such as Ethereum or Solana—total roughly $40 billion today. Morgan Stanley Research and Oliver Wyman expect the value of those assets to reach $2.3 trillion by 2030, or 57 times current levels. In the most optimistic scenario of widespread adoption, tokenized assets could reach as much as $5.5 trillion by 2030.
“While some predictions around tokenization are over-hyped, the growth and potential impact to the financial services landscape shouldn’t be ignored,” says Felix Stratmann, Global Digital Asset Strategist at Morgan Stanley Research.
The projected growth reflects a more supportive regulatory environment and increasing client demand for the potential benefits of tokenized assets. These include 24/7 access, faster processing, the ability to earn interest over smaller increments of time rather than relying on a traditional end-of-day cutoff, more efficient collateral management and broader distribution and access.
Demand from institutions is already emerging, with collateral and cash management among the clearest uses today.
“For asset managers, the near-term opportunity is expected to center on distribution and product manufacturing, particularly money market funds and short-duration instruments used for collateral and reserve or treasury management, as well as tokenized equities,” Stratmann says. “For wealth managers, tokenization is increasingly a question of capabilities and competitive positioning. Firms will need to deliver tokenization’s benefits to clients or risk ceding assets and data to emerging digital platforms that already offer these capabilities.”
AI Moves From Productivity Tool to Business Engine
Industry executives expect AI to boost earnings and productivity much sooner than tokenization. The technology is quickly moving beyond general productivity tools and into firms' day-to-day work.
Asset and wealth managers are deploying AI across investment research, sales preparation, corporate functions, customer service and helping portfolio companies grow. The next challenge is turning those uses into lasting revenue growth, more capacity and wider margins.
“In the long term, firms envision AI agents managing programmable portfolios and automatically moving capital among tokenized investments and payment assets, although this depends on a substantially more mature tokenized ecosystem,” Cyprys says. “This is not an evolution of how technology gets deployed; it’s a fundamental reset of how businesses need to be run and organized.”
