UAE Tops Global AI Momentum in Wealth Management, Challenges Legacy Tools

The UAE has climbed to second place globally on a new index measuring investor optimism around artificial intelligence in wealth management, and it has taken the top spot worldwide for what researchers call “momentum”, a sign that investors here are more ready than anyone else to swap traditional research tools for AI-driven ones.

That’s according to BridgeWise’s inaugural *State of AI for Wealth in 2026* report, which surveyed 2,100 employed adults with active bank accounts across 19 countries. The study looks at how investors are using AI in their research and decision-making, and perhaps more interestingly, how they feel about it.

At the heart of the findings is the new Global Wealth AI Optimism Index. It ranks countries across four pillars: adoption (how often people use AI), confidence (how much they trust it), edge (whether they believe it gives them an advantage), and momentum (their intention to replace traditional research methods with AI tools). The Middle East came out on top overall, with Saudi Arabia ranking first worldwide and the UAE just behind it in second place.

Where the UAE really stands out is in momentum. Investors here showed the strongest intention of any country surveyed to replace conventional investment research with AI tools in the next 12 months. In a region already pushing hard on national AI strategies and fintech infrastructure, that feels spot on. Anyone who’s followed the UAE’s technology drive over the past few years won’t be surprised.

I remember speaking to a founder in Dubai a while back who described AI adoption in finance as “no longer a luxury, just plumbing”. At the time, it sounded a bit bold. Now, looking at this data, I reckon he might have been right.

The report also highlights what it calls the “Untapped Believers”. Around 29.3% of respondents who don’t currently use AI for investment research already say they trust its accuracy. The issue isn’t fear or scepticism. It’s access. Many simply don’t have the right, purpose-built tools integrated into their wealth platforms. In other words, the demand seems to be there, the supply just needs to catch up.

And believe it or not, the shift could happen quite quickly. Globally, 65.1% of respondents said they are likely to replace manual investment research with AI-driven tools within a year. The generational divide is clear: 57.8% of investors aged 18 to 35 identify as frequent AI users, compared to only 26.9% of those over 50. That gap tells its own story.

BridgeWise CEO Gaby Diamant commented that the real competitive divide in wealth management will not be between humans and machines, but between those who have access to specialised, wealth-native AI and those relying on generic tools not designed for the complexity of global markets. He pointed to the need for AI that is explainable, accurate, and built specifically for finance.

That said, I’m not entirely convinced that traditional research will disappear overnight. Seasoned investors, especially in more conservative markets, may still see value in human judgement and experience. On the flip side, if AI can surface opportunities invisible to conventional analysis, and do it faster, it’s hard to argue against its appeal.

BridgeWise, which provides regulatory-compliant AI tools for equity and fund analysis as well as multilingual investment chat solutions, says it now serves more than 100 institutional clients and 35 million end users across more than 15 languages. The company operates in markets from Japan and Singapore to the US, London, Brazil, Thailand and Dubai, and works with institutions including Japan Exchange Group, S&P Global Market Intelligence, SIX, B3, eToro and Rakuten Securities.

For startups across the MENA region, especially those building in fintech, this should be food for thought. At Arageek, we’ve seen time and again how quickly investors here embrace new tools when they believe it gives them an edge. The appetite for AI in wealth management isn’t just theoretical, it’s definately gathering pace.

If this “great research migration” plays out as the data suggests, the next year could mark a turning point. Not with a bang, but with a steady, confident shift, investors quietly logging into smarter platforms and leaving the old spreadsheets behind. And that, as they say, could change the game.

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