At the US WealthTech Vendor Forum, Spring 2026, delegates heard that product advantage is now effectively temporary. Instead, speakers argued, the question facing WealthTech vendors is instead less about the technology they hold than about how they talk about it, how they sell it, and how they maintain relationships within their key buyers.

Key takeaways included that:

• WealthTech firms must stop leading with features. Buyers do not buy “seamless integrated platforms” – they buy outcomes. If you cannot state in one sentence a specific problem your product will fix – and whose problem it is – you are invisible.
• AI has collapsed differentiation, which means the 'product moat' is gone. In its place, the standout factors are distribution and trusted relationships – meaning your go-to-market motion is now your most valuable intellectual property.
• The internal build-vs-buy calculation for wealth managers has shifted. Many CTOs now believe they can quickly build AI solutions in-house. That poses a potential barrier – but also an opportunity if vendors target actual constraints: not technology, but attention and integration capacity.
• Large enterprises move at a glacial pace – it’s not unusual to see 12 to 18-month waits for procurement and security approvals. The firms that accelerate deals are those that find a C-suite owner with an active problem and then maintain relentless communication upward.
• Data is emerging as a differentiator. Platforms that own unified client data are positioned to build or replicate point solutions using AI – potentially removing the need for many current integrations. At the same time, AI is enabling categories of WealthTech that were not previously viable.

Clarity, not technology, is the scarce resource.

The Wealth Mosaic currently tracks more than 3,000 WealthTech solutions, noted Susan Quinn, CEO of strategic marketing firm Circle S Studio. That means a huge amount of competition for scarce wealth manager attention. “Buyers are being approached all the time. Some are hearing multiple pitches in the same week. The market isn’t just competitive – it’s overwhelming.”

Vendors stumble when they lead with the products they offer instead of the problems they propose to fix. Quinn recalled a FinTech pitch she’d heard a day earlier. “The entire 45 minutes were about the features, about all the technical language. I tuned out after about three minutes.”

She also called out the “bankrupt language” such as “seamless, integrated approach” – which appears on nearly every FinTech website. “Think about the multiple presentations that are coming through. You’re all saying the same thing. How do you stand out?”

Instead, she laid out three questions every firm must answer:

• What specific problem are you solving?
• Who are you solving it for? (not “everyone”) 
• How will it help your clients? 

She cited Steve Jobs: “When the iPod came out, he didn’t say it was five gigabytes of storage. He sold it as a thousand songs in your pocket.”

This can be a filter for wealth managers. When a vendor cannot articulate the problem they solve for a specific role – whether that be C-suite, trading desk, IT, or advisor – they may not be ready for enterprise purchase.

Distribution is the new product

“The barrier to entry with AI has never ever been lower; the barrier to attention has never been higher,” said Wim Van Lerberghe, Founder & CEO at Advintro. Having better product features or exclusive access to good leads are no longer defining advantages, especially as artificial intelligence (AI) automates lead-generation. “Now everybody has the good leads – there is no more exception.”

He said distribution and momentum had replaced product as the new advantage. The implication for capital allocation is that, where once 95 percent of a US$5 million capital raise went to product development, now just one-tenth goes to technology and the remaining nine-tenths to distribution.

For wealth managers, the implication is that every vendor looks increasingly similar at the feature level. The choice of partner will depend not on technology, but on who shows up with a trusted relationship and a credible path to implementation. As Van Lerberghe put it, “People buy from people they like and trust.”

That might add unexpected competitors, he added. He pointed to Wealth.com, an estate-planning tool that raised US$62 million before moving into tax services, as an example of a firm leveraging its existing client relationships to expand into new areas. “Nobody is staying in their swim lane anymore,” he said. “Once you’re in the door, you can build additional stuff.”

The key is relationships, he said. “The question is no longer, ‘How do I close this deal?’, but, ‘How do I become the most attractive person for this group, so we keep selling more?’.”

The enterprise sales cycle is long – but not random.

Charles Smith, Principal, Business Consulting at EY, spoke about the challenges associated with the approval processes for large institutions. He noted these can take over a year – a year in which the client isn’t getting the opportunity to use the product. Blockers include procurement, chief information security officer (CISO) reviews, technology due diligence, and the scale mismatch between a 30-person WealthTech and a firm serving millions of clients.

But the single most important variable, he said, is finding “the right person who’s got a significant problem” – and that person needs to be at the C-suite level. “A lot of times you’re talking to folks at the mid-tier levels, who have a problem but can’t get anything done. Getting to that right C-level person that understands the problem, and knows you have the solution, will expedite it through.”

He added that getting through to that person is just the start – to avoid getting buried within the organization, constant communication is needed with the C-suite even while the implementation team works at lower levels. “We have a constant chain of communication. The C-suite always knows what we’re doing.”

Smith added that the “build vs buy” discussion within wealth firms is becoming a “speed bump” as they expand their use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. “If it’s AI-related, they think they can do it themselves.”

But just because a firm can build an AI tool does not mean it should, particularly when engineering teams are already backlogged on core systems. “Keep pressuring the C-suite and say, ‘do you really want to take time away from your technology team so they can do this fancy thing, or do you want me to solve this for you?’.”

Playing the M&A game: “Always be for sale but never be for sale”

Irfan Iqbal, partner at EY Capital Advisors, described a shift in WealthTech investor attention away from consumer-facing models, such as robo-advisors and direct-to-consumer wealth products, that drew capital five to seven years ago. Now investors are focused on the infrastructure and data layers.

He described the distinct frameworks through which strategic acquirers and financial investors assess value. For a strategic acquirer, the primary motivation is competitive: “If somebody else has this and I don't have it, they'll take market share.” For a financial investor, the orientation is mathematical – a growth equity investor is dividing an expected exit value by three or five; a venture capitalist is looking for 10 to 20 times the investment.

The best exits are from founders who know how to play the game with large strategics, he said. “Always be for sale but never be for sale. When someone knocks on your door, always open the door, because that door knock is really hard to get.” Connectivity is important. “At a large cap strategic, they have to love you. They have to think you’re God’s gift to Earth.”

He identified a behavioral pattern among founders who get M&A wrong: “Spending too much time reading the press.” It’s easy to read about major deals and thinking “I’m worth this, I’m worth that,” he said. “The press only issues press releases on the winners. For every winner, there's 100 losers.” Instead, he counseled that founders should focus their attention on what they’re good at. “Staying in your lane, being the best at what you do – customer success, customer happiness, and being patient.”

Relationships: the new source of competitive advantage

In a market of 3,000 solutions, none of the traditional differentiators hold. Technology can be copied. Leads are commoditized. Enterprise approval timelines are long enough to outlast a competitive advantage.

What remains is the quality of relationships – with buyers, with partners, and C-suite contacts. That means it’s more important to build the relationship than to close the big deal. The firms that stand out are no longer the ones with the best technology, which can be copied in a weekend. They are the ones who can clearly communicate how they can address their buyers’ needs and then build that relationship over time.

Want to find out more about WealthTech in 2026? Read our report here.