China’s 818 Wealth Management Festival marks its 10th anniversary with a deep industry shift: AI has evolved from a marketing tool to a core investment advisory infrastructure, as brokerages seek deeper client value and long-term engagement.

Brokerages report concrete AI milestones, including Guoxin Securities signing up over 32,500 smart conditional orders and a nearly 50 billion yuan in cumulative trading volume, while Guotai Haitong’s Lingxi app sustains strong engagement with 83 million user sessions and over 90% monthly retention for smart advisory clients.

AI is being embedded into core advisory functions across firms, from client management and account diagnostics to personalized investment guidance and proactive app services, with features like AI-driven profiling and enterprise WeChat assistants.

ETFs remain central to festival activities, hosting live trading competitions and investor education; brokerages use AI-driven data to analyze post-trade behavior for enhanced outreach, turning competitions into ongoing education channels.

Market conditions in the third quarter drive flexible, market-cycle-aware activities, including adaptive risk management content, grid trading promotions, and tiered product offerings tailored to different risk appetites and experience levels.

Digital human livestreaming expands, but progress is tempered by licensing, real-time interactivity, and compliance limits, with pilots at Guotai Haitong, Zhongtai Securities, and Kaiyuan Securities.

Festival objectives are shifting toward customer-value metrics—long-term engagement, experience optimization, investor education, and private-domain, one-on-one client relationships through tools like enterprise WeChat and user co-creation models.

The broader transformation emphasizes moving from incentives to a value-driven ecosystem, with data-backed strategies and evolving regulatory considerations guiding the industry’s trajectory.

Advisory tools increasingly power core functions, with AI-driven profiling and proactive services enabling more personalized guidance and smarter trading support across multiple brokerages.