A major shift is happening with the digital platforms of financial services. Gradually, mere transactional platforms for investments are now becoming intelligent platforms which are helping investors navigate their way through complex financial decisions.
With the launch of InvesTap Nxt, SBI Mutual Fund has brought about a new change in the use of digital platforms, from just transactional platforms to intelligent financial companions to help investors along their journey, and the possibilities are endless.
In a conversation with Express Computer, Srinivas Jain, Chief of Strategy, Digital & Technology, SBI Mutual Fund, explains how conversational AI, the account aggregator ecosystem, and intelligent workflows are reshaping both investor experience and enterprise operations.
Moving beyond transactional investment apps
Investor expectations around digital experiences have changed dramatically over the past few years. Financial platforms are no longer expected to simply execute transactions; they are increasingly expected to provide clarity, context, and personalised guidance.
At SBI Mutual Fund, this shift becomes evident early during the design of InvesTap Nxt.
“We are constantly evaluating the evolving landscape and the changing requirements of our users, and we realised one thing quite early on — today’s investment apps can no longer be just self-service platforms,” says Jain.
The organisation observes that modern users are accustomed to intuitive digital experiences powered by conversational interfaces. These expectations are now extending to financial applications as well. “Investors are now used to interacting with simple chat- or voice-enabled interfaces and expect the same ease in all their digital experiences,” he points out.
At the same time, investors face increasing complexity in financial decision-making. With a wide range of mutual fund schemes available, choosing the right investment path can often feel overwhelming. “They are also short on time and want expert guidance on their investments, along with support to demystify the choices available to them,” Jain adds.
This evolving behaviour is shaping SBI Mutual Fund’s digital strategy. The goal, according to the team, is to build a platform that not only enables transactions but also helps investors stay committed to long-term wealth creation. “Our aim is to be at the forefront of helping our investors make smarter investment decisions and stay committed to their wealth-building journey.”
Conversational AI as the core experience layer
One of the central components of InvesTap Nxt is its Smart AI Assistant, designed to simplify investment journeys through natural language interactions.
The decision to introduce conversational AI is shaped by insights gathered from investor research. “In a nationwide survey of more than 3,000 investors, two insights emerged strongly. First, investors want a simple way to understand and transact in mutual funds… Second, investors wanted a 360-degree view of their finances in one place,” says Jain.
The AI assistant attempts to address both of these needs by acting as a conversational guide within the platform. “Our smart AI assistant attempts to solve the first problem. It can explain any mutual fund concept, answer questions about our products, and even provide comparisons to simplify investment decisions.”
Beyond answering questions, the assistant also helps investors complete routine actions directly through conversational prompts. “It can also guide users in completing transactions, updating folio details, downloading statements, and more. All you need to do is ask/prompt,” he explains.
By reducing friction in these tasks, SBI Mutual Fund aims to simplify the entire investment journey. The organisation is also closely monitoring how these AI-enabled interactions influence user engagement. “Going forward, our endeavour is to make every journey AI-enabled, track improvements in conversion ratios, and learn continuously from user feedback to further optimise these experiences.”
Bringing financial visibility through the account aggregator ecosystem
Another important feature of InvesTap Nxt is its integration with India’s Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem, which allows investors to view their financial holdings across multiple institutions in a single interface.
Historically, investors needed to access multiple platforms to track their investments across mutual funds, equities, and other assets. The AA integration helps consolidate this information. “The account aggregator ecosystem integration gives investors a powerful way to quickly view their investments across different AMCs, schemes, stocks and ETFs – information that previously required accessing multiple apps,” he adds.
By bringing these datasets together, the platform provides investors with a unified perspective on their financial health. “By consolidating this data and showing it, we have taken the first and most critical step of giving investors complete visibility into their financial landscape.”
Once this visibility is established, the platform can begin offering deeper insights. The organisation believes that AA-enabled data could eventually support more advanced financial analytics. AA-enabled data can be used to deliver highly personalised and actionable insights, including risk scoring, diversification analysis, rebalancing recommendations, and intelligent investment opportunities.
For an asset manager operating at SBI Mutual Fund’s scale, improving investor awareness and financial well-being is a strategic priority.
“As India’s largest asset management company, we see it as our responsibility to ensure our investors remain in strong financial health,” asserts Jain.
Balancing AI innovation with security and compliance
While digital innovation opens new possibilities, financial services remain one of the most tightly regulated sectors. Deploying AI-driven workflows and data aggregation requires strict attention to privacy, security, and compliance.
SBI Mutual Fund emphasises that investor trust remains the foundation for every technological initiative.
“For us, maintaining our investor’s trust, confidence and reliance on us is something that defines everything we do.”
The organisation views innovation as something that must operate within clearly defined regulatory boundaries. “It is our strong belief that innovation needs to clearly work within the regulatory and compliance framework that governs us as an asset management company,” avers Jain.
During the development of InvesTap Nxt, the team follows established regulatory guidelines while implementing AI capabilities and data integrations. “Our approach has been to innovate responsibly – ensuring that every AI-driven workflow and instance of consent-based data usage is secure, transparent, and fully compliant.”
The Account Aggregator ecosystem itself introduces an additional layer of security through consent-based data sharing. “The AA platform also ensures that only the data explicitly consented to by the user is available to us.”
AI beyond the investor interface
While much attention is focused on investor-facing features, SBI Mutual Fund also sees significant potential for AI and automation within internal operations.
The rapid pace of AI innovation is opening new possibilities for improving efficiency across several enterprise functions.
“At our scale, we see immense potential to enhance operational efficiency across several areas, especially those related to investment decision-making, risk management, compliance adherence, customer support, and information security rules management & monitoring,” he says.
AI-driven workflows can help reduce manual complexity, support faster decision-making, and improve monitoring capabilities across operational processes. These technologies can help aid manual efforts and reduce complexity.
The organisation is already exploring internal AI use cases in several operational areas, with a long-term goal of building AI-first capabilities across the enterprise. “And building AI-first capabilities in these areas is a priority area for us,” affirms Jain.
The future of digital investing
Looking ahead, SBI Mutual Fund expects investor expectations to continue evolving as digital tools become more intelligent and personalised.
The industry itself is undergoing a structural shift in how financial products are discovered and consumed. “We are clearly seeing that mutual funds have evolved from being a push product to a pull product.”
This shift means investors increasingly expect tailored insights and intuitive experiences rather than generic product recommendations. “They seek actionable insights based on their specific needs along with simpler, intuitive journeys to complete their tasks. AI-driven personalisation is likely to play a major role in shaping the next generation of digital investing platforms. The day is not far when users will choose which AI agent they want to work with to manage their investments,” he elaborates.
For SBI Mutual Fund, the long-term vision for platforms like InvesTap Nxt is centred on a simple principle. “For us, the future is ‘Personalised Investment, Simplified’, and we aim to lead the industry towards that vision.”