Wealth managers are in trouble. Today, the traditional wealth management firm is not built for the financial future of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth client families, and it’s not changing fast enough to keep up with the changing times.
Welcome to another edition of Advisor Tech Talk, where we’ve found the key wealthtech headlines from a very busy week in both financial technology and wealth management, with plenty of major mergers and acquisitions, conference announcements and tech integrations.
But first, let’s talk about wealth managers in this very technology-forward era we’re moving through.
What we see everywhere is ham-fisted efforts to implement technology, even by so-called technologists themselves. This is not a new problem—incumbent wealth managers have struggled with implementing subsequent generations of technology, and all we need for proof is to take a good look at the technology stack of average firms, selected at random.
Since we’re not positioned to engage in such a study, we’re going to accept some anecdotal evidence from industry experts at a recent family office technology conference in New York, where AI dominated the conversation, according to a writeup in The Family Wealth Report. Wealth management executives argued that they represented the last generation that will oversee purely human-oriented wealth management services.
However, implementing and successfully reaping the benefits of artificial intelligence will require data—as well as data processing and data analysis—that financial firms, wealth managers in particular, have been slow to embrace.
Simply put, the industry—even at its highest levels of service—doesn’t sound ready for AI, though it is already trying to implement the technology as quickly as possible.
That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
The conference attendees and presenters said that most family-office level wealth management firms are falling behind in their implementation efforts because, surprise surprise, they are struggling with what is deemed legacy technological infrastructure. They have the resources to implement new systems, but their data and operations are so reliant on the old that the transition to next-generation systems is slowed, or aborted entirely.
Across the country, at an RIA-specific summit in Los Angeles, wealth management and wealthtech executives predicted that next year (meaning 2026) would be the year of AI agents. Firms who have solved the data issue are already implementing their own forms of general-purpose, multi-tasking AI agents, while others are hurrying to launch tools of their own.
These executives acknowledged that AI is already having a human resources impact in wealth management, as firms are delaying or eliminating hiring for some roles, and thinking strategically about which workers to redeploy and which positions to eliminate entirely. It feels to us like the labor impacts of AI are happening faster than expected, even in highly regulated industries reliant on human contact and trust.
Moving forward, many of the activities and interactions in wealth management will occur not between two human beings, or between two humans with technology as an intermediary, or between one human and their technology—but will occur autonomously between different AI agents each representing a different institution or end client.
If that’s the case, only a certain percentage of wealth management businesses are positioned to take advantage of the technology—which means there would only be a relative few winners and potentially thousands or tens of thousands of losers as the industry is transformed in coming years.
Let’s get to those headlines.
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AllocateRite
AllocateRite, the world’s first deterministic AI-powered wealth management platform, today announced the launch of its Marketing Compliance Tool, a purpose-built solution that streamlines marketing review, reduces regulatory exposure, and provides audit-ready transparency across channels and formats.
Financial institutions are increasingly vulnerable to inadvertent exposure of sensitive client information embedded in marketing materials – factsheets, videos, social posts, podcasts, and more. The risk is significant and costly, including potential penalties under national and international data protection laws when protected personal data is mishandled. AllocateRite’s new tool tackles this head-on by conducting pre-publication reviews, flagging issues before they become violations, and guiding rapid remediation so content meets firm policies and regulatory expectations without slowing business processes.
The Market Compliance Tool checks more than twenty content formats against rules and regulatory guidance to deliver consistent, explainable results. It routes each item to the right people at the right step, lets reviewers collaborate with clear comments and tracked changes, and keeps everything in one dashboard that records who changed what, when, and why from first draft to final sign-off. Firms move from draft to approval in days instead of weeks, cut regulatory risk with built-in checks, and lower costs by automating routine reviews and handoffs. All with the audit trail regulators expect.
Bento Engine
Bento Engine (“Bento”), an award-winning fintech empowering financial advisors to deliver proactive, comprehensive advice at scale announced today a new partnership with Event Advisors, a leading specialist on impactful client events that move the needle.
Through the launch of the new Bento Events in a Box program, Bento will offer its users access to a new suite of purpose-built materials they can use to deliver impactful client or prospect events focused on “Moments That Matter”. Topics include for example key age-based milestones such as developing a personalized Social Security Benefits strategy when turning 62, or best wealth management practices when moving to a new state. The Events in a Box program provides everything advisors need to organize and deliver impactful in-person or virtual events, ranging from invites to confirmation emails, from event materials to follow-up items.
In wealth management, in-person client events have proven to be powerful growth drivers. Recent Kitces research shows client appreciation events and seminars generate the highest revenue per client (Kitces, 2024 Advisor Marketing Study). Nitrogen’s Firm Growth Survey further found that hyper-growth firms rank events as their top-converting marketing channel beyond referrals (Nitrogen, 2023 Firm Growth Survey). These insights underscore how well-executed events create experiences that strengthen loyalty and fuel firm growth.
CAIS
CAIS, the leading alternative investment platform for independent financial advisors, announced today an expanded technology integration with Schwab Advisor Services, the industry leader and largest custodian of registered investment advisor (RIA) assets. This collaboration enables advisors to scale execution of ticker-traded alternative investment products—as well as subscription-based funds— through the CAIS platform, reinforcing CAIS as the single destination for alternative investments while simplifying client onboarding.
With the Schwab integration, advisors can bring account profiles onto the CAIS platform and facilitate transactions across both subscription-based and ticker-traded funds. These enhancements remove duplicative workflows and manual processes, while strengthening oversight—giving advisors a faster, more streamlined way to access and trade a broad range of alternatives. By simplifying the investment journey, advisors can spend less time on operations and more time driving efficiency and delivering a better client experience.
Schwab and Focus Financial Partners will also be participating in the 2025 CAIS Alternative Investment Summit, the marquee gathering of independent advisors and alts managers, in Beverly Hills, October 13–16, 2025. For more information on CAIS events, please visit www.caisgroup.com/events.
Carefull
Quotient Wealth Partners has selected Carefull, the first financial safety platform built to protect clients’ wealth and legacy, as its new partner in financial safety and asset protection. This partnership enhances Quotient’s mission of providing personalized, values-driven financial advice by adding proactive protection that help secure client assets and support multigenerational planning.
Carefull’s AI-powered platform continuously monitors for unusual spending patterns, suspicious transactions, and changes to credit or accounts, detecting threats early and guiding clients and their trusted contacts with clear, actionable steps to prevent harm. In addition to fraud and scam detection, Quotient clients will have access to $1 million in identity theft insurance coverage, Carefull’s ScamCheck tool, which allows clients to instantly verify whether a message is a scam, and LegacyKit a secure digital solution that automatically stores and updates essential financial information to ensure it reaches loved ones when the time comes.
Carefull can also surface early warning signs of health changes. Spending summaries that reveal unusual patterns, such as the sudden absence of gasoline purchases, can prompt important conversations with family members about safety and well-being. In some cases, these insights have alerted families to faster-than-expected progression of dementia.
The CIO Group
The CIO Group (“CIOG”), a new wealth intelligence firm, today announced its official launch. Founded by David Bailin, former Global Head and Chief Investment Officer of Citi Wealth, alongside a senior team drawn from the world’s top banks, investment boutiques, and family offices, CIOG delivers Total Wealth Intelligence — a new paradigm in portfolio management powered by a powerful combination of proprietary artificial intelligence and decades of investing experience.
With its proprietary technology and industry-leading investment experience, CIO Group client portfolios focus on growth industries, reflect shifting macroeconomic trends, weight elements based on relative market valuations and take advantage of markets dislocation. CIO Group advises clients on their total wealth, improving portfolio results by reducing fees, improving cash returns, eliminating redundant market exposures and increasing diversification, all while working with other advisors and family office CIOs.
At the center of CIOG’s business is COLOR, our proprietary AI-powered analytics engine that decodes a client’s total portfolio with unprecedented transparency. COLOR allows the CIO Group to advise or manage portfolios with increased tax efficiency and fewer hidden risks. CIOG’s leadership team works side by side with clients and their advisors to act on its insights to optimize performance and increase portfolio efficiency.
Focal
Focal, the AI-powered productivity platform purpose-built for financial advisors, announced today that it has raised a $5 million seed round from top venture capital and wealth industry leaders. The raise was co-led by Distributed Ventures, along with Wischoff Ventures and other industry insiders.
The capital will accelerate development of Focal’s advisor-focused meeting automation, performance coaching and back-office workflow platform. It will also expand enterprise adoption through automations that securely self-manage workflows across any advisor tool or back-office system, with or without an API.
Nearly one-third (28%) of financial advisors report insufficient client-facing time due to manual workflows and compliance obligations. As client expectations rise, there is increased advisor demand for platforms that save time, increase efficiency and elevate client service.
FutureVault
Interactive Financial Advisors (IFA), a firm recognized for its innovative approach to wealth management, today announced the launch of Client Life Management Vaults (MY CARES XP Vaults) in partnership with FutureVault, the leading provider of AI-powered Digital Vault solutions.
These new Vaults — delivered through a custom-branded web and mobile experience — reflect IFA’s belief that Financial Success is achievable if Clients, Advisors, and Resources work together with an Effective System (The CARES Process™). By integrating FutureVault’s secure, enterprise-grade platform into its unique model, IFA is transforming how clients organize the many facets of their financial and personal lives, how advisors deliver value, and how critical information (documents) is delivered, accessed, and exchanged.
This initiative represents a bold step forward for IFA in reimagining the future of financial advice and client service. By marrying the firm’s mission-driven model with FutureVault’s award-winning technology, IFA is leading the way in creating a new standard for collaboration, organization, and client empowerment in wealth management.
iPipeline
As part of its strategy to expand within the annuity market, Axonic InsuranceTM (“Axonic”), an annuity and investment solutions provider backed by Axonic Capital, and iPipeline®, a leading provider of digital solutions for the life insurance and wealth management industries, announced a new alliance that streamlines the annuity order entry process for the organization’s VantagePoint product launch while expanding distribution within the independent marketing organization (IMO) channel.
Following Axonic’s search to accelerate the order entry process, streamline the contract execution process, and reduce instances of NIGO (not in good order), the carrier turned to iPipeline for its flexible, self-service digital AFFIRM® platform. The result? Axonic successfully launched an annuity offering, VantagePoint, a proprietary multi-year guaranteed annuity (MYGA) product designed for the IMO market, delivering speed, efficiency, and innovation in record time.
Through this alliance, Axonic can access the broad distribution system of LIBRA Insurance Partners (“LIBRA’) , the largest independently owned life insurance marketing organization in the U.S., making VantagePoint and other annuity products available to its LIBRA network. With 90 partner firms throughout the U.S., the LIBRA network includes independent brokerage general agents (BGAs), insurance producers, and financial institutions.
Kapnative
First Rate Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of First Rate, Inc., today announced its investment and strategic partnership with Kapnative, a Berlin-based fintech platform revolutionizing access to pre-vetted private market funds for wealth managers, family offices, banks, and institutional investors.
Founded in 2023, Kapnative specializes in AI-powered fund due diligence workflows that reduce manual review time by up to 80%, regulatory-compliant investment processes, and white-label platforms designed for high-net-worth allocations. The company is rapidly expanding across German-speaking markets, with clients already representing over €11 billion in assets under management (AUM).
The investment will be used to deploy the Kapnative Alternatives Underwriting Agent in partnership with First Rate’s Professional Services team. This collaboration will not only accelerate Kapnative’s AI-powered product roadmap but also enable synergies across other WealthTech use cases for Kapnative’s customers based in German-speaking regions of Europe.
MyVest
MyVest, a leading provider of enterprise wealth management technology, has expanded and integrated the proposal and transition capabilities of its Strategic Portfolio System™ (SPS). By combining proposal generation with tax-aware transition planning, the new workflow enables firms and advisors to grow assets, consolidate held-away accounts and deliver personalized proposals that demonstrate unique value to clients.
According to research from Cerulli Associates, only 48% of wealth management platforms offer automated tax-efficient transition tools, with 24% still performing transitions manually. MyVest’s SPS automated transition management transforms this time-intensive process into a consistent, scalable capability that firms can deploy across their entire advisor force.
With the new enhancements, each transition plan and proposal is encoded in an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) within SPS to guide automated plan execution and ongoing portfolio management. This enables tax-efficient transitions over time, adaptations to market changes, proactive tax management, allowing firms to track and manage groups of portfolios in transition daily.
NFSG
NFSG Corporation today highlighted its NFSG 360™ mobile platform as a cornerstone of its national expansion strategy, providing all NFSG advisors and clients with technology capabilities that rival those of major financial institutions. The app, available on iOS and Android, enables smaller advisory practices to deliver the same sophisticated digital experience expected by today’s investors.
NFSG 360 serves as the primary delivery mechanism for the firm’s Wealth Management Program and comprehensive financial services, providing clients with secure access to their portfolios, performance reporting, and communication with their advisors from anywhere.
For advisors, NFSG 360 integrates seamlessly with the firm’s practice management technology, including Redtail CRM, eMoney financial planning, and the proprietary digital transition platform that has revolutionized how advisors move their practices to NFSG.
Orion
Orion announced today a refreshed visual identity that reflects the company’s innovation, momentum, and commitment to advisor success. The updated branding comes on the heels of a landmark year for Orion, as the firm surpassed $5 trillion in platform assets and the advisors and firms using its wealthtech solutions grew faster, both organically1 and through M&A2, than their industry peers. In tandem with the new look, Orion introduced a unified investment framework designed to streamline how advisors evaluate and implement investment strategies.
Orion’s modernized brand is built to reflect its forward momentum and the evolving needs of the advisors and firms it serves. The updated visual identity includes a refined logo, bold new design language, and a cohesive brand system spanning Orion’s full platform, including refreshed identities for Redtail and Brinker.
Serving as a centralized guide for portfolio construction, the unified investment framework simplifies strategy selection, reduces time to implement book conversions, and supports broader client needs through an expanded due diligence process and wider strategist coverage.
Pontera
Pontera, the leading platform enabling secure management of held-away assets, today announced its strong support for the Rhode Island Securities Division’s newly released guidance on data aggregation and third-party platforms. Rhode Island has joined Texas and Delaware as states providing guidance supporting investors and advisers’ ability to use data aggregation to improve investors’ financial lives.
Importantly, unlike Texas or the SEC, Rhode Island prohibits investment advisers from using their clients’ passwords. By issuing constructive guidance within a stricter framework, Rhode Island has clarified that advisers can use third-party data aggregation tools and platforms in full compliance with its prohibition on password use. It also shows that third-party platforms can help protect investors against the risks associated with advisers holding client credentials. This sets a clear and practical standard for other states with similar restrictions to follow.
Pontera supports advisers’ efforts to align their practices with their regulators’ expectations. Rhode Island’s guidance provides clear steps advisers can take when using Pontera.
Quod Financial
Quod Financial, a leading provider of adaptive trading technology, today announced the launch of Unity, its proven integration architecture, now available as a standalone product. Unity delivers a new way for financial institutions to modernize their trading infrastructure, by unifying fragmented systems and workflows without the disruption of rip-and-replace projects.
Unity has long powered Quod Financial’s modular trading suite, from OMS, EMS, SOR, algo trading, market making to TCA solutions. For the first time, financial institutions can now deploy Unity independently as the foundational layer for their architecture, with the choice to integrate Quod Apps or third-party systems.
Across the buy side, sell side, and wealth management industries, trading environments are often built on decades of siloed platforms and point integrations. OMS, EMS, AI tools, custodians, and post-trade systems rarely communicate seamlessly. Integration projects can take 12–24 months and cost millions, while vendor lock-in limits innovation and adaptability.
SS&C
SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSNC) today announced that The Trust Company of Tennessee has launched its corporate retirement services on the SS&C Retirement Recordkeeping platform. The firm is working with SS&C to modernize its retirement plan offering, which services more than USD $18 billion in assets.
The Trust Company of Tennessee provides recordkeeping, administration and advisory services to businesses and organizations offering retirement plans. The platform upgrade enables retirement plan sponsors to deliver retirement and wealth management services to individual participants. Leveraging SS&C’s suite of services, The Trust Company of Tennessee is expanding its mobile and modern web experiences.
SS&C Retirement Solutions serves more than 250 institutional clients with more than $341 billion in retirement plan assets. The platform supports more than 400,000 plan sponsors and approximately 12 million retirement participants.
Vanilla
Vanilla, the most trusted modern estate planning platform for financial advisors, today announced a strategic partnership with Osaic, Inc. (Osaic), one of the nation’s largest providers of wealth management solutions.
Through this partnership, Osaic’s national network of more than 11,000 financial advisors can now access Vanilla’s comprehensive estate planning platform to streamline complex processes, create compelling planning scenarios, and deliver more meaningful, results-focused client experiences.
As American families increasingly prioritize estate planning in their financial strategies, the partnership with Vanilla strengthens Osaic’s commitment to providing its advisor network with advanced capabilities. This enables advisors to more effectively service their clients, grow their practices, and offer clients a seamless path to protect their wealth, secure their families’ futures, and plan with intentionality.
Vestmark
Vestmark, Inc., a leading wealth management software and services provider, announced today that Elevation Point, a growth accelerator and minority stake partner for independent advisors and breakaway firms, will utilize Vestmark’s full suite of services, including Vestmark’s separately managed accounts (SMA) and unified managed accounts (UMA) platforms, Advisor as Portfolio Manager capabilities, and tax management services.
Elevation Point has experienced rapid growth in 2025, announcing multiple minority investments in top independent and breakaway advisory teams. Backed by capital and a credit facility from Emigrant Partners, the firm has expanded its leadership team, enhanced its family office capabilities, and broadened its services for high- and ultra-high-net-worth clients, all while accelerating the onboarding of new advisor teams. Since its launch last year, Elevation Point has invested in firms representing a combined $9.6 billion in client assets under supervision.
Vestmark supports six of the industry’s 10 largest managed account platforms, with $1.5 trillion in assets flowing through its platform. More than 65,000 advisors supported by Vestmark technology have access to a model marketplace with more than 1,200 strategies.
