Artificial Intelligence (AI) simulation is reshaping how wealth and asset managers understand client behaviour, make decisions, and design strategy. Rather than relying on delayed or biased traditional research, firms can now model real-world decisions with speed, accuracy, and scale.
A new paradigm for strategic insight
Traditional decision-making suffers from two major flaws:
- Distortion: surveys capture what people say, not what they do, and are heavily influenced by social desirability, incentives, fatigue, and hypothetical bias.
- Delay: by the time data is collected, analysed, and interpreted, market dynamics have already shifted.
AI simulation addresses both issues. With advances in agentic AI and synthetic populations, organisations can simulate real-world behaviours at scale, test strategic ideas before acting, and adapt to market changes and events in real time. What formerly required months of research can now be reproduced in hours.
The EY organisation recreated the 2025 EY Global Wealth Research Report using technology from Aaru, an AI simulation startup. The result: a 90 percent median correlation across 53 questions and 3,600 respondents, completed in a single day. More importantly, in areas where survey responses diverged from actual behaviour, AI simulation proved more accurate than traditional research.
How AI simulation works
At the core of AI simulation are synthetic agents – digital agents built from real-world demographic, outcomes-based, and sentiment/preference data. Large language models dynamically generate unique temporally aware, real-world agents equipped with human features that represent the desired audience with traits such as age, income, risk preferences, and decision tendencies.
These agents behave autonomously, weighing trade-offs, evaluating choices, and forming opinions. Unlike simple chatbots, they follow behavioural architectures that mimic human decision logic, producing transparent, traceablepatterns in an auditable logic trail.
This approach solves a longstanding challenge: people consistently overstate their willingness to pay, their sustainability priorities, or their risk tolerance when no real consequences are involved. AI simulation removes this gap between intent and action by modelling the behaviours people are likely to exhibit under realistic conditions based on data demonstrating how people have actually behaved in the past.
Major organisations are already applying this approach. Interpublic Group uses Aaru to predict marketing campaigns’ performance before launch. Heartland Forward modelled AI sentiment across 20 US states in days rather than months. Political parties are reproducing election outcomes for primary candidates.
The power of behavioural accuracy
To test the reliability of AI simulation, EY compared simulation results with both its survey data and with third-party industry statistics. Two insights illustrate the difference between stated and actual behaviour:
The inheritance loyalty myth
- Survey (what heirs say): 82 percent of heirs claim they’ll remain with their parents’ adviser.
- AI simulation prediction: 43 percent will remain.
- Real world: only 20 – 30 percent actually stay.
The simulation’s closer alignment with reality highlights how behavioural modelling cuts through aspirational or socially acceptable responses. For wealth managers, this insight reframes intergenerational retention – not as an assumed outcome but as a challenge requiring early, deliberate relationship building.
The consolidation contradiction
- Surveys: 69 percent say they prefer a single financial provider.
- AI simulation: 37 percent prefer a single provider.
- Reality: roughly 33 percent of high-net-worth individuals use just one adviser
Clients say they want simplicity but behave in ways that prioritise specialised expertise, not convenience. AI simulation exposes these behavioural contradictions, helping firms craft acquisition and retention strategies that are grounded in authentic behaviour.
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From guesswork to real-time strategic confidence
Beyond traditional surveys, AI simulation transforms how strategy is conceived, tested, and executed. The real advantage is not speed, but the shift from static to continuous intelligence.
Organisations can rerun simulations in response to market shifts within 24 hours. Rate changes, political events, product launches, or competitor moves can all be analysed immediately. Neither fieldwork, nor recruitment are required: AI Simulation produces instant behavioural projections.
This enables new strategic possibilities across the value chain:
Strategic planning
- Replace annual planning cycles with ongoing scenario testing.
- Model competitive dynamics, pricing strategies, and customer reactions in real time.
- Predict defection risk before it manifests.
Product development
- Understand likely adoption curves before development begins.
- Test user experience across thousands of simulated interactions.
- Identify the optimal mix of features, pricing, and messaging.
Risk management
- Stress-test strategies against rare or unpredictable events.
- Model cascading effects before they occur.
- Build organisational resilience with simulated crisis scenarios. AI simulation doesn’t replace human judgement or traditional research; it complements them. It provides a new behavioural lens that reveals the likely outcomes of strategic decisions before they are executed.
A fundamental industry transformation
AI simulation represents a shift as significant as the move from paper maps to GPS. Instead of extrapolating from old data, firms can explore new markets and test strategies across numerous scenarios. It accelerates research, enhances insight quality, and unlocks new levels of strategic precision.
EY is not simply observing the transformation – it is co-creating it. Through proven methodology, validated accuracy, and hands-on implementation with clients, EY is helping to shape the future of strategic intelligence.
The question for organisations is no longer whether AI simulation will redefine decision-making.
It’s whether they will lead the transformation – or be left behind.
This publication contains information in summary form and is therefore intended for general guidance only. It is not intended to be a substitute for detailed research or the exercise of professional judgement. Member firms of the global EY organisation cannot accept responsibility for loss to any person relying on this article.
Discover the themes and trends shaping WealthTech today. Read the report here.
Deepen the conversation at WealthTech 2026: US edition
This report sets the foundation for our WealthTech 2026: US edition live event, taking place on 29 April 2026 at the New York headquarters of report contributor EY. Brought to you in partnership with EY, the US event will bring together stakeholders across the US wealth management ecosystem to deepen the report’s insights and explore the latest WealthTech trends.
Attendees will include WealthTech vendors and wealth managers representing banks, broker-dealers, credit unions, registered investment advisers, and family officers. To find out more about WealthTech 2026: US edition, read our full preview article here.
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About The Wealth Mosaic
The Wealth Mosaic is a UK-headquartered online solution provider directory and knowledge resource, focused specifically on the wealth management industry.
For wealth managers, the buy side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic is designed to enable discovery of key solutions, solution providers and knowledge resources by specific business needs.
For solution providers and vendors, the sell side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic exists to support the positioning, exposure and business development needs of these firms in a more complex and demanding market.
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