The battlelines are drawn and the debate is fully engaged on how to regulate artificial intelligence in the financial industry—and in particular wealth management.
Welcome to Advisor Tech Talk, where before we get to some near-the-end-of-the-year headlines, we’re going to take AI’s proliferation into wealth management as a given—it’s not a matter of whether it’s going to happen, it’s already happening.
Oh, you don’t believe us? Take EY’s latest US AI Pulse Survey, that found 96% of participating organizations investing in AI were already reporting AI-driven gains in productivity. The real punchline to EY’s survey were findings that firms are not really using these gains to reduce headcount, but instead, to invest more into AI.
Need more? How about this one: Origin’s AI-automated financial advisor averages a 98% on the CFP exam—the company claims the top human CFPs average around 85%. So, this is a snowball already rolling down the mountain—but it’s not inevitable that AI takes over everything in wealth management.
Let’s say there’s a major failure in agentic AI wealthtech that costs clients a lot of money—who do we hold accountable, and how?
It’s not an easy question.
Do we blame the company developing the underlying AI models? The people training the AI? The people who deployed and implemented the AI? The people continuously monitoring the AI models to ensure they continue to function? A human financial advisor (if there is one) who was supposed to be paying attention all along?
What if there’s a breach and a hacker—potentially working on behalf of another bad actor—influences financial artificial intelligence to manipulate markets or steal client assets?
Again, the question of who is held responsible, and how, isn’t as easy as it seems.
Many financial services industry lobbyists are arguing that AI technology should play by the same rules as traditional banks and brokerages—and they may be right.
But it doesn’t seem like regulators have always treated other wealthtech and fintech like their traditional counterparts, particularly in investment and retirement applications, where safe harbors have been carved out to allow digital platforms to provide services to a broad base of users without being held to the same standards as wealth management firms.
We doubt that the financial industry wins out in drawing AI regulations in all cases as if it were traditional wealth management. AI wealthtech and fintech will likely enjoy similar safe harbors.
Which, of course, would facilitate the continued acceleration of AI-driven automation in wealth management.
Let’s get to your headlines…
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401GO
Today, 401GO, a fully-owned 401(k) platform, announced $33 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Centana Growth Partners, with participation from existing investors: Next Frontier Capital, Rally Ventures, and Impression Ventures.
This Series B comes less than two years after 401GO’s $12M Series A fundraising round, underscoring continued investor conviction in the company’s fully in-house retirement infrastructure.
The investment will expand 401GO’s embedded partnerships with Human Capital Management providers, financial institutions, and financial advisors while scaling the company’s team, product offerings, and end-to-end technology.
Advyzon
Advyzon, a comprehensive technology platform and portfolio management solution for financial advisors and investment managers, today announced that it is bringing Andes Risk (Andes), an award-winning risk and behavioral analytics firm founded by Helen Yang, CFA®, directly into the platform. By incorporating Andes’ patented risk and behavioral methodologies into Advyzon’s native single data model and unified codebase, the enhanced capabilities will elevate the platform’s model marketplace, risk assessment, and future financial planning capabilities. The expanded functionality is expected to surface in 2026.
Helen Yang has joined Advyzon as Executive Vice President and will work closely with the executive and product teams to bring Andes’ intellectual property and methodologies into the platform. Her deep expertise will help drive Advyzon’s roadmap, with the plan of infusing Andes’ capabilities into the Advyzon platform. By natively embedding Andes, Advyzon will continue to stay true to its mission of providing a unified solution with a single data model, single code base, and single client experience.
Yang is widely recognized throughout the wealth management industry for her pioneering work in risk and behavioral finance frameworks and data-driven analytics. With a career spanning over two decades, she works to blend quantitative research with psychological and decision-making insights for advisors to better understand their clients and manage risk more effectively.
CapIntel
CapIntel, a pioneer in financial technology solutions transforming how wealth professionals communicate investment insights, today announces the formalization of a strategic collaboration agreement with KPMG Canada to help wealth management institutions modernize their advisor and client experiences through digital innovation, tech stack simplification, and scalable implementation frameworks.
This collaboration brings together KPMG Canada’s advisory and implementation expertise with CapIntel’s award-winning wealth advisor enablement platform, empowering financial institutions to deliver more personalized, compliant, and efficient wealth management experiences.
Through this collaboration, wealth management companies can expect to see accelerated results, bringing C-suite and board level initiatives into an efficient process that drives strategic goals through to a successful rollout and adoption of the platform. Together, KPMG and CapIntel will support the setup, execution, and launch of transformational change programs and solutions, helping wealth management firms streamline advisor workflows, enhance client engagement, and deliver measurable business outcomes that align leadership vision with front-line execution.
Earned
Earned, a leading tech-enabled wealth firm purpose-built for healthcare professionals, today announced the acquisition of OJM Group (OJM), an Ohio-based Registered Investment Adviser (RIA), financial planning, and insurance agency serving physicians and high-net-worth individuals across the U.S. for over 25 years.
The deal marks a key milestone in Earned’s national expansion strategy to achieve its mission to build the most comprehensive, fully integrated, technology-driven financial services firm for healthcare professionals, their families, and their practices. The addition of OJM’s expertise in investment management, asset protection, corporate & personal planning, insurance, and benefit planning reflects Earned’s latest move to attract best-in-class firms to its unique platform.
OJM’s 12 professionals will join Earned’s team of over 230 employees nationwide. OJM services specifically enhance the scale of Earned Wealth Advisors, Earned’s RIA, by adding nearly $1B in assets under management (AUM).
Empathy
iA Financial Group, one of Canada’s largest life insurers and a leader in wealth management, is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Empathy, the technology company transforming how families navigate life’s most difficult moments. Beginning in Spring 2026, Canadian beneficiaries of iA’s Individual Life products will gain access to Empathy’s award-winning Loss Support solution—an innovative blend of advanced technology and human-first care designed to provide emotional, logistical, and administrative assistance during bereavement.
Empathy’s approach is rooted in real-life impact: According to the company, families using its services report saving an average of 189 hours and significantly reducing stress during one of life’s most challenging times.
This initiative positions iA as an industry leader, redefining bereavement support to go far beyond financial benefits. By offering comprehensive care that combines compassion, innovation, and practical assistance, iA ensures every family experiences trust, understanding, and peace of mind.
Envestnet
Envestnet, a leader in Adaptive WealthTech for financial advisors, today announced the rollout of its fourth quarter platform technology updates designed to deliver greater flexibility, customization, and efficiency for financial advisors. This release reflects direct advisor feedback and a commitment to empowering professionals with tools that drive superior client outcomes.
2025 was a transformative year for Envestnet, marked by executive leadership appointments, technology innovation and partnerships, and a new five-year strategic roadmap complete with a $1 billion investment in research and development. Envestnet’s most recent tech rollout reflects the company’s ongoing investment in technology and advisor support, and commitment to empowering financial professionals and its clients through WealthTech innovation.
As Envestnet continues to invest aggressively in its product and technology organization, backed by a $1 billion commitment to research and development over the next five years, this Q4 release update reflects a more than 50% increase in productivity driven in part by AI-enabled development, materially accelerating time to market while raising the bar on quality. This operating leverage is translating directly into faster delivery of high-priority innovation, sharper platform performance, and a sustained ability to keep advisors ahead in a highly competitive environment.
Expero
Expero, a leader in digital wealth technology and AI-driven user experiences, today announced an agreement with Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, to bring ICE’s extensive cross-asset data and analytics into Expero’s Connected Finance platform, enabling clients to integrate market data directly into trading, advisor and investor workflows using Expero’s custom-built software components.
Together with Expero, ICE is expanding its extensive data distribution capabilities to include widget-based delivery for wealth management, retail investing and brokerage platforms. In addition to ICE’s traditional data delivery channels, including feeds, file delivery and desktop terminals, customers can now leverage ICE data in charts, dashboards, and other interactive tools for faster and easier analysis and visualization.
Expero’s growing Connected Finance ecosystem helps bring solutions to market faster by integrating internal and external data through a fully configurable platform. With ICE’s breadth of data and Expero’s design, ICE and Expero customers gain new front-end components to access and analyze vast amounts of data.
Income Lab
Income Laboratory, Inc. (Income Lab), the award-winning provider of dynamic, tax-smart retirement planning software, today announced a partnership with Cetera Financial Group (“Cetera”), the premier financial advisor Wealth Hub. Through this partnership, Income Lab’s modern, dynamic retirement income and planning tools, empowering advisors to deliver smarter retirement planning at scale, will be offered to approximately 12,000 financial advisors and institutions in the Cetera network.
By having access to Income Lab’s capabilities, Cetera further expands the number of retirement planning tools available to its financial advisors and institutions to create retirement strategies that are not only personalized and tax-smart, but also flexible enough to adapt to market changes, policy shifts, and evolving client goals.
Income Lab helps people plan for retirement by providing a clearer understanding of their overall financial picture, and, once in retirement, what they can safely spend, and when they may need to adjust if life changes. Built for today’s retirement realities, the platform goes beyond one-time projections with a holistic planning approach that integrates taxes, Social Security, annuities, and market dynamics into a flexible, ongoing strategy. Income Lab provides ongoing guidance that helps advisors get their clients to and through retirement with confidence. This approach delivers clarity for retirees and greater efficiency and scale for advisory firms.
InvestCloud
Truist Wealth, the private wealth business of Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE: TFC), is proud to announce a leap forward in its digital transformation journey, powered by InvestCloud, a global leader in wealth technology focused on delivering more meaningful outcomes for clients. This strategic partnership marks a key moment in Truist Wealth’s multi-year investment to deliver a differentiated and client-centric digital experience.
The digital wealth solutions from InvestCloud unify data from multiple systems, providing clients with a holistic view of their financial lives, and self-directed trading capabilities support those who want to manage and execute trades. By simplifying financial management and enabling seamless digital engagement, Truist Wealth is unlocking new levels of convenience and personalization for its clients.
Myriad Advisor Solutions
Myriad Advisor Solutions (Myriad) today announced a new partnership with Content 151 designed to give breakaway advisory firms access to customized blog content and marketing support. Their first joint product, the Custom Blog Program, will be available to firms starting in 2026. Myriad has long-supported independent advisors seeking to build dynamic firms. As more advisors seek independence, Myriad continues to evolve its offerings to help new firms compete; that encompasses everything from strategic business planning and cybersecurity to brand building.
For the Custom Blog Program, Content 151 developed a “mini library” of content exclusively for Myriad clients. Participating firms can select ten topics to fully customize. With minimal time and effort, advisors will get a ready-to-launch blog that reflects their message, target clients, and approach to asset management. The product is designed to help advisors stay competitive as AI continues to rewrite the rules around search.
PNC Bank
PNC Bank today announced the launch of direct spot bitcoin trading capabilities for eligible clients of PNC Private Bank®, making PNC the first to market with such an offering among the major U.S. banks. Powered by Coinbase’s Crypto-as-a-Service (“CaaS”) market leading infrastructure, PNC has enabled clients to buy, hold and sell bitcoin directly through PNC’s own digital banking platform.
The launch marks a key milestone in PNC’s strategic partnership with Coinbase, announced in July, to provide trusted, secure and innovative digital asset solutions to PNC’s private banking clients.
The first generation of PNC’s new “crypto for clients” solution integrates Coinbase’s institutional-grade CaaS infrastructure within the PNC Private Bank Online platform. Through Portfolio View, eligible clients can now access crypto custody capabilities to directly buy, hold and sell bitcoin. With more than 100 offices and serving high- and ultra-high-net worth clients, PNC Private Bank is positioned to offer its client base access to the digital asset economy.
TIFIN
TIFIN today announced that Andrew Dahlinghaus will join as Chief Operating Officer. He brings more than 25 years of leadership across legal, regulatory, and operational disciplines in technology-driven, highly regulated industries. In this role, he will report directly to Founder and CEO Dr. Vinay Nair and will lead TIFIN’s next phase of execution across its AI platform.
Andrew’s career spans global corporations, private-equity–backed companies, and emerging technology businesses. He began at Arent Fox in Washington, D.C., advising life sciences companies on regulatory matters, government investigations, and M&A. He later joined Covidien (acquired by Medtronic), running the commercial legal function for its largest business unit and leading legal strategy on key strategic acquisitions.
Following his time at Medtronic, Andrew took on senior roles within private-equity portfolio companies during periods of significant change. His work included the listing of Convatec Group plc on the London Stock Exchange and the build-out of corporate governance, data protection, and internal audit functions at technology companies with global operations. He has managed teams across China, India, the E.U., Singapore, Colombia, Switzerland, Israel, and the U.K.
Tradeweb
Tradeweb Markets Inc. (Nasdaq: TW), a leading, global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets, today announced that it completed the industry’s first fully electronic auction for brokered certificates of deposit (CDs). The inaugural transaction took place on Tradeweb’s retail platform between Gateway First Bank and InspereX, and was executed on-chain, powered by Alphaledger’s blockchain technology.
The auction represents a key step toward modernizing a market that has long relied on manual processes and weekly pricing set by a limited group of dealers. Although outstanding brokered CD volume is significant, only about 25% of U.S. banks currently issue brokered CDs, highlighting the opportunity to expand participation, improve transparency and increase efficiency across the ecosystem.
Brokered CD issuance year-to-date through October 2025 amounts to approximately $566 billion, while total outstanding is estimated at about $820 billion. Brokered CDs offered to individual retail investors are FDIC-insured up to $250,000, with potential for broader FDIC coverage as more banks enter the marketplace. For corporate treasurers, this electronic auction introduces added flexibility for yield optimization and diversification through a streamlined digital process.
Wealth Write.Up
Wealth Write.Up, a Canadian leader in AI-powered investment accounting software, announced today it has successfully completed its SOC 2 Type 1 certification. This achievement validates that Wealth Write.Up meets the highest standards for data security, privacy, and operational integrity. The certification enhances the company’s ability to protect sensitive financial data for accounting firms, family offices, and wealth management professionals operating in regulated industries across Canada.
Wealth Write.Up is a Canadian-built investment accounting platform designed for accounting firms, family offices, and wealth management professionals. The platform simplifies complex investment accounting, such as multi-custodian and multi-currency transactions, while delivering accurate financial reporting, audit-ready records, and deep client insights.
Because Wealth Write.Up clients handle high value data for accounting and tax-sensitive reporting, security and data sovereignty are core to Wealth Write.Up’s mission. The company ensures all client data is securely hosted within Canada, adhering to Canadian privacy laws and regulatory expectations.
Zeplyn
Zeplyn, the AI-native workflow intelligence platform for wealth management firms, today unveiled new enterprise-grade agentic AI capabilities powered by Agent Nexus. Agent Nexus is a newly architected system of specialized agents that unify historically fragmented data and allow advisors to ask deeper, more complex questions and instantly turn those answers into fully executed actions that drive growth and retention. Agent Nexus is available to all customers starting today.
Built on Zeplyn’s industry-leading accuracy and commitment to security, the release introduces Agent Nexus as the platform’s central intelligence engine, most notably through an enhanced Ask Zeplyn experience that now operates as a continuous, streaming chat. Using voice or chat, wealth managers can ask multi-part questions about a client or segment of clients, reference prior answers, upload documents to deepen analysis, and refine their inquiry without losing context. Zeplyn analyzes information pulled from across a firm’s most critical data sources, including meeting notes, CRM records, emails, and uploaded client documents, and more, to generate personalized responses and carry out tasks instantly.
This release marks a major evolution in how wealth management firms use AI day to day, shifting from gathering and surfacing insights to quickly and accurately executing tasks that were previously time-consuming and error-prone. For many firms, the impact goes beyond providing fast and thorough responses to a single client. With the new Ask Zeplyn powered by Agent Nexus, wealth managers and firm leaders can:
