It seems like we’ve been talking a lot about wealthtech for a long time—and when we started, the only people really regularly talking about wealth management technology were fellow journalists.
That’s definitely no longer the case.
Welcome to another Advisor Tech Talk full of wealth management and financial technology headlines, but first, we’re going to discuss a trend that has led to more chatter—and more news to cover—around wealthtech.
More wealthtechs and wealth management firms are talking about their partnerships. Not long ago, a wealth management firm choosing a piece of technology was something that happened regularly but wasn’t really discussed much. It certainly wasn’t cause for announcements and press releases.
Well, that’s certainly changed—the industry has changed and what technology financial advisors are using is more important for both advisor recruitment and client prospecting, in particular for next-generation advisors and prospects.
And we’re changing, too. When we started writing this column we decided that we weren’t going to run announcements about technology firms being hired by wealth managers, but over the past few months we’ve capitulated and started running them. And they have their place in Advisor Tech Talk, too, as we imagine advisors and wealth management executives want to keep track of what kind of technology their peers and competitors are using.
This week we have tech partnership announcements from Orion-Edelman Financial Engines, Jump-Focus Financial Partners, Wealth.com-LPL Financial, and RightCapital-Kestra Financial
We also have some wealthtech data out of Schwab, who found that advisor AI use has doubled since 2023 with 63% of RIAs in a survey of 533 firms now using artificial intelligence in some capacity. Most firms are in the early stages of AI adoption, according to Schwab, however, among AI adoptees, 83% are already using generative AI.
Schwab’s survey respondents are already realizing benefits including time savings and workflow improvements.
More concerning, Schwab cites—but does not elaborate on or support with data—a growing gap between RIAs that are early adopters of AI versus those who have waited to implement new technologies.
No surprises, then, that Schwab is using the research to launch a news “Schwab Advisor AI in Action” program to supply RIAs with guidance and education around the technology.
Let’s get to your headlines.
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55ip
55ip, a fully-owned subsidiary of J.P. Morgan, and a financial technology company purpose-built to break down barriers to financial progress, today announced that Chadd Lucas joined the Client Solutions Team as Executive Director and Enterprise Business Development Manager, based in the firm’s New York office. He will report to Michael Camp, Head of Client Solutions at 55ip.
Lucas will play a key role in shaping 55ip’s Enterprise Sales efforts, focusing on expanding business among broker-dealers, asset managers, and wealth management platforms. He has deep expertise across multi-asset, traditional, and alternative investment products.
Prior to joining 55ip, Lucas served as Senior Vice President of Business Development at Voya Investment Management, where he oversaw the adoption of investment solutions across broker/dealer clients in all asset classes and product types—including active equity, fixed income, multi-asset, private equity, mutual funds, SMAs, accredited, and Qualified Plan (QP) solutions.
AdvisorEngine
AdvisorEngine®, the financial experience company, deepened its commitment to developing innovative solutions for financial advisors, announcing wealthtech veteran Tim Foley as the company’s first Head of Artificial Intelligence.
Foley’s role at AdvisorEngine includes developing and integrating third-party AI functionality within the company’s wealth management platform. Most recently, Foley was LPL Financial’s Head of Artificial Intelligence Accelerator, charged with building and delivering AI capabilities for independent advisors.
Foley’s 25 years of experience in wealthtech include serving as Managing Director at BNY Mellon|Pershing, where he oversaw its advisor workstation (NetX360), client website (NetXInvestor), and integration services (NetXServices) as the Head of Technology Product Management for nine years.
Advyzon
Advyzon Investment Management (AIM), a seamlessly integrated unified investment solutions platform through the comprehensive wealthtech platform Advyzon, announced an exciting new relationship with Schwab Asset Management®, offering Wasmer Schroeder® Strategies, a provider of a broad host of portfolio strategies across the duration, credit, and tax-efficiency spectrum. Schwab Asset Management and its Wasmer Schroeder Strategies will be the first fixed income focused strategist available in AIM’s Manager Traded Strategy program.
As the first manager traded strategies available on AIM’s Nucleus Model Marketplace, Schwab Asset Management will manage the day-to-day trading. The AIM investment team currently builds and trades individual bond strategies, but the Wasmer Schroeder Strategies will be AIM’s first actively managed strategies by an outside fixed income manager.
In addition, Schwab Model Portfolios, including Core Enhanced ETF and Passive-Active strategies, are available within Nucleus. Schwab Model Portfolios are designed to be straightforward, transparent, and easy to understand. Leveraging Schwab Asset Management’s ABC asset allocation framework, they use a behavior-based approach to encourage positive investor behavior and help clients stay invested through all types of markets.
Aidentified
Aidentified, Inc., the leading Wealth Networking Intelligence™ platform, today announced the launch of its new Starter Plan, expanding access to AI-powered relationship intelligence with greater flexibility and cost control for financial professionals.
The Starter Plan replaces Aidentified’s former Professional option and is available immediately. It delivers the same core capabilities as the Premium Plan, including advanced prospecting, relationship mapping, and wealth intelligence, while offering a lower-commitment, month-to-month subscription structure. The plan includes 125 credits per month and is designed for advisors and teams who want to evaluate value and ROI without a long-term contract.
Aidentified delivers a 360° view of clients and prospects by combining professional and household data with timely wealth signals and proprietary relationship mapping, helping advisors engage more personally, act at the right moment, and grow through trusted connections rather than cold calls.
Alles Technology
Alles Technology, a cybersecurity and technology services provider purpose-built for the wealth management industry, today announced the launch of its Tabletop Exercise service, an interactive, discussion-based simulation designed to help firms test their incident response plans and prepare for real-world cyber threats.
The Tabletop Exercise serves as a “dress rehearsal” to walk firm leadership through a hypothetical cybersecurity event, such as a data breach or ransomware attack, allowing key decision-makers to evaluate how they would respond in a live scenario without impacting day-to-day operations. Through guided discussion, the exercise helps firms define roles, validate escalation paths, assess communication strategies, and identify gaps in existing response plans.
The Tabletop Exercise is designed to be collaborative and strategic, bringing together leadership, compliance, operations, and technology stakeholders to walk through critical decision points in a controlled setting. Participants evaluate how they would coordinate internally, communicate with clients and vendors, notify insurance carriers, engage regulators, and respond to law enforcement, all under realistic time and information constraints.
Datalign Advisory
What if you could meet a potential customer and know exactly how to build rapport in seconds? Relationship AI from Datalign Advisory makes this possible by delivering intelligence briefs that give advisors a context-rich view of every prospect—scannable in 30 seconds. Early adopters were over 16% more likely to turn a first conversation into a qualified opportunity—lowering customer acquisition cost while saving hours of manual research. With Relationship AI, advisors spend less time preparing and more time building trust, from the very first conversation.
Built on Datalign’s proprietary knowledge graph of over 200 million Americans, Relationship AI goes beyond basic profile data—name, assets and location—to highlight money-in-motion events, financial indicators and signals that a prospect may be navigating a major life moment. Each briefing gives advisors the context they need to connect on what matters most—right from the start.
The financial advisory industry is facing a critical organic growth challenge: 78% of advisors cite organic growth as their biggest problem—yet most are stuck juggling disconnected point solutions that drain productivity instead of driving it. The pressure is compounding: McKinsey projects 38% of the current financial advisory workforce will retire in the next decade, with not nearly enough new advisors to replace them. With fewer advisors serving more prospects, productivity becomes the critical bottleneck to ensure firms can continue to grow. McKinsey identifies AI-powered meeting preparation as one of the most important levers for the 10–20% productivity gains the industry needs to meet surging demand for human-delivered financial advice.
HCLTech
HCLTech, a leading global technology company, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Finergic Solutions Pte Ltd, a boutique wealth consulting firm headquartered in Singapore. The transaction is expected to close by April 30, 2026.
Founded in 2019, Finergic focuses on core banking and wealth management transformation and has a strong, well-established global presence. The addition of Finergic’s niche capabilities, combined with the scale of HCLTech, is expected to unlock stronger synergies and enhance service delivery across the financial services and wealth management industry.
HCLTech brings 25+ years of global experience in serving leading financial institutions. By integrating Finergic’s specialized transformation strategy, consulting and wealth-architecture capabilities, HCLTech will accelerate the delivery of next-generation, platform-enabled wealth management solutions anchored by advanced AI-native workflows. These capabilities will complement HCLTech’s existing global experience supporting clients in Temenos products, including more than 40 global banks.
Jump
Jump, a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for financial advisors and other financial services providers, today announced a strategic partnership with Focus Financial Partners (‘Focus’), an interdependent partnership of wealth management, business management and related financial services firms that collectively advise more than $500 billion in assets. The collaboration empowers Focus’s business divisions to streamline meeting workflows, turn client conversations into actionable insights and accelerate their use of AI-driven productivity tools.
The partnership delivers immediate, high-impact value to Focus’s advisory teams by reducing administrative burden and freeing up more time for meaningful client work. Jump’s ability to integrate directly with CRM and other wealth tech tools should reduce meeting prep time, improve data quality and support more automated workflows.
This announcement follows a year of significant momentum for Jump, including surpassing 20,000 advisors on its platform and securing notable partnerships with Osaic, LPL Financial, Cetera, eMoney, RightCapital and others—further advancing its mission to shape the future of advisor intelligence.
Merchant
Merchant announced today the appointment of Clayton Chandler as Chief Data Officer. In this role, Chandler will lead Merchant’s enterprise data and artificial intelligence strategy, helping to deepen the firm’s ability to use data as a strategic asset across its growing ecosystem of partner firms. Chandler brings extensive experience helping financial services organizations use data more effectively to inform decisions, improve operations, and better serve clients.
Prior to joining Merchant, Chandler served as Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Osaic, where he led the firm’s data strategy during a period of significant growth. Since joining in 2021, he has helped the organization evolve into one of the world’s largest independent broker-dealers, with more than $800 billion in assets and over 10,000 independent advisors.
Earlier in his career, Chandler held senior leadership roles at Credit Suisse, including Chief Data Scientist and Chief Information Security Officer, where he led global teams focused on analytics and cybersecurity. He also served in multiple senior roles at the U.S. National Security Agency, including Technical Director of High-Performance Data Analytics.
Orion
Orion today announced its collaboration with Edelman Financial Engines (EFE) to provide advisor technology and investment management solutions in support of EFE’s planning teams.
EFE, one of the nation’s largest independent wealth planning and workplace investment advisory firms, is leveraging Orion’s connected ecosystem to streamline operations, strengthen collaboration, and help planners spend more time where it matters most: with clients.
PNC Bank
PNC Bank announced today that customers who use online banking can now digitally open individual brokerage accounts through PNC Wealth Management. The functionality allows clients to quickly and easily access a self-service digital solution for brokerage account opening.
Individuals who opt to use the feature can now open and fund a PNC Wealth Management brokerage account with ease, eliminating time, paperwork and other points of potential friction. Once their account is open, users can explore investments, make trades and track financial performance. The move is intended to make the investment experience easier and more intuitive for PNC clients, who will continue to have the ability to work with a PNC Wealth Management financial advisor.
The digital account-opening capability is part of a larger initiative by PNC Wealth Management to enhance the digital experience for users.
RightCapital
Kestra Financial, an industry-leading wealth management platform, today announced significant investments in its advanced planning offering to help advisors deliver more comprehensive, personalized financial strategies to their clients. This includes the appointment of Christine E. Brown as Head of Advanced Planning, along with a new partnership with RightCapital, a leading provider of financial planning software for wealth management professionals.
Kestra’s investment in advanced planning also includes a new partnership with RightCapital, giving Kestra-affiliated advisors access to a powerful suite of planning solutions. These tools integrate seamlessly into advisors’ existing technology stacks, enabling them to deliver modern, comprehensive financial plans.
RightCapital offers robust planning capabilities, including comprehensive retirement planning, sophisticated tax planning, insurance needs analysis, and much more. The platform also constantly evolves to address the most complex financial situations. Within the past year alone, RightCapital has launched new features to support planning for business owners, client prospecting, and expanded tax analysis. In addition to the comprehensive suite of solutions, Kestra advisors will also benefit from RightCapital’s white-glove onboarding and ongoing support, ensuring seamless integration and maximum value.
SMArtX Advisory Solutions
SMArtX Advisory Solutions (“SMArtX”), a leading innovator in managed accounts technology, has announced the addition of new investment strategies from 22 leading asset management firms to its Manager Marketplace. The firm’s Manager Marketplace now partners with 388 distinguished asset management firms offering 2,668 investment strategies. Additionally, this includes research on 39 individually listed mutual funds, ETFs, and ticker-traded alternatives.
Vestmark
Vestmark, Inc., a leading provider of wealth management technology and services, in conjunction with T. Rowe Price, a global investment management firm and leader in retirement, today announced the launch of Custom Premier, a collaborative solution to deliver personalized, tax-efficient portfolio construction across ETFs and mutual funds to registered investment advisors (RIAs) and their clients.
Custom Premier is designed to meet the evolving needs of advisors by enabling them to deliver highly customized investment strategies at scale while maintaining operational efficiency. The solution integrates Vestmark’s advanced tax management with T. Rowe Price’s institutional-caliber model portfolio design and investment insights. RIAs can now access the custom models at Vestmark with no platform fee.
Custom Premier addresses a critical need in the RIA marketplace: the ability to customize model portfolios to client preferences, risk profiles, and tax considerations, without compromising efficiency or scalability. With this solution, RIAs can align portfolios more closely with individual client goals, actively manage tax exposure, and implement investment strategies with precision and transparency.
Wealth.com
Wealth.com, the leading end-to-end estate planning platform for financial advisors, today announced a strategic relationship with LPL Financial (‘LPL’), one of the nation’s leading wealth management firms and a leading provider of investment and business solutions to financial advisors. As part of this relationship, Wealth.com has been made available to LPL’s advisors and wealth planning teams. With a direct integration in place, LPL’s Advanced Planning Team will utilize Wealth.com’s Family Office Suite™ to support complex estate planning needs, enabling advisors to securely collaborate and share advanced cases through a direct integration in the Wealth.com ecosystem.
Wealth.com will provide LPL advisors with an intuitive, advisor-first platform to model estate plans, generate documents and collaborate securely with clients, all within their existing workflows. This also includes the use of Ester®, Wealth.com’s AI-powered legal assistant trained specifically on estate planning documents and language. Ester reads and interprets wills and trusts, extracting key information and visualizing it in a way that is clear, digestible and actionable for both advisors and their clients. This innovation saves hours of manual review, improves accuracy and enables advisors to focus more on client guidance rather than administrative tasks.
This curated network of third-party solutions is designed to help advisors increase operational efficiency, drive growth and deepen client relationships. As part of this program, LPL advisors receive access to Wealth.com’s dynamic estate reports and a permission-based Vault system that centralizes essential documents across generations.
