Wealthtech is robbing financial advisors of the value of their expertise and experience, leading wealth managers to retreat towards managing and maintaining relationships with client households.
Is the financial services client relationship, with little to no added value, enough to build an industry upon?
It was another active week in financial advisor technology, with more than enough wealthtech headlines to fill our column. In fact, aside from a slow start after the holidays, 2026 is ramping up nicely.
Three-quarters of advisors are already using AI, according to an Advisor360 survery abouut AI use in wealth management.
Recall that last week, we reported a bit on a recent survey from Jump. This week, we have more data from an Advisor360 poll (which we’ve gone over in more depth over in our AI & Finance newsletter from last week). However, advisor trust issues remain—mainly due to distrust of AI outputs and uncertainties around compliance and regulatory hurdles, according to the survey.
The Advisor360 survey also revealed a curious reluctance by advisors to discuss their use of AI with clients. Advisors who use AI don’t want to tell their clients about it, or advertise their use of AI in any way.
We think we’ve been pretty clear about how we think ourselves and our journalist peers should handle AI and disclosures—tell everyone everything upfront, and answer every question honestly, as to when and how we use AI. It should be no different for financial advisors, right?
Furthermore, as wealth management becomes even more technology centric, current and prospective clients are going to want to know their financial service professionals are using every means necessary, including artificial intelligence, to optimize the value they receive from their services—and if they’re not sure they can get that kind of optimization and personalization from a human advisor, technology platforms will gradually peel them away from traditional wealth management.
A recent financial wellness study finds Americans just as stressed as ever about their finances—and, of course, strongly suggests that wellness programs linked to workplace retirement accounts deliver great value to participants. More than three-fifths of a CAPTRUST-sponsored survey of 4,300 employee participants said they were stressed about finances, with early-career employees expressing the most stress. Almost all respondents said they would use a free financial advisor as part of their workplace plan, if offered one, but “actual engagement for those with access remains low,” according to the report.
Perhaps it is wellness, in particular, and financial coaching and therapy, more generally, where clients, prospects, and plan participants will see the most value in financial service relationships. So, if the business successfully transitions away from a value proposition centered in technical expertise to one centered in relationship management, then these survey results tell us that wealth managers are going to have to address wellness, coaching and financial therapy topics more than they do cash-flow planning, insurance and investment performance.
Let’s get to those headlines…
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Alto
Alto, the leading self-directed IRA platform bringing private markets to individual retirement portfolios, today announced the continued expansion of its business development leadership team as institutional and enterprise demand for private markets access accelerates. As part of this growth, Evan Deussing joined Alto in January as Head of Revenue, while Ari Koban, who joined the company in November, serves as Vice President of Enterprise Partnerships.
Deussing was previously Partner and Managing Director, Head of Distribution at PPB Capital Partners, where he was responsible for expanding the firm’s presence across the private wealth and RIA channels. Prior to joining PPB, he spent a decade at FS Investments, most recently as Executive Director and Head of IBD/RIA Business Development. Earlier in his career, Deussing held senior sales leadership roles at Prudential Annuities and began his career as a financial advisor at PNC Investments. He holds the CIMA® designation from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in Entrepreneurship from Johnson & Wales University.
Ari Koban’s background includes leadership roles across asset management, fintech and national politics, most recently leading Enterprise RIA business development at Vise AI, a fintech startup that simplifies client portfolio management and administration for financial advisors. He previously spent 11 years at BlackRock, most recently in the Aladdin Wealth Tech business as a Director, where he managed a team that drove the placement, activation and adoption of BlackRock’s advisor-facing portfolio analysis tools. Earlier in his career, he worked for President Obama’s administration in various roles including serving in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, managing campaign fundraising operations, and as an appointee at the Export-Import Bank of the U.S.
Aquilance
Aquilance, a technology-enabled provider of personal financial administration services for wealthy families and their advisors, today announced a $16 million growth investment led by Ten Coves Capital. The investment builds on Aquilance’s 39 years serving this market, and will enhance Aquilance’s bookkeeping, bill payment and multi-entity accounting capabilities, deepen integrations with wealth management firms, and expand support for enterprise partners.
Aquilance is the trusted operating infrastructure for over 300 HNW/UHNW families and enjoys close partnerships with their financial advisors. The demand for wealth management firms to deliver family office-style solutions continues to surge; yet most advisors and wealth firms lack the required infrastructure to serve these needs in a scalable and compliant manner in-house. Aquilance helps firms and independent advisors meet client expectations by providing white-glove service, flawless financial data, and insights that enable a client’s team of trusted advisors (financial, legal, tax) to deliver better service and advice.
The investment builds on Aquilance’s long standing role as a strategic partner to wealthy families and their advisors. Ten Coves brings deep expertise investing in verticalized financial software companies that modernize legacy workflows. The firm was an early investor in Bill.com, the platform that redefined bill payment services for businesses. Ten Coves believes Aquilance is similarly transforming bill payment services in the wealth management market, leveraging its expertise in delivering solutions for the unique complexity of high-net-worth families, including multiple residences, numerous entities, and many accounts.
Atomic Insights
Atomic Insights, a provider of money-movement and workflow automation tools for RIAs and family offices, announced today that it has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Aquiline with participation from Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and existing investors.
Atomic Insights is targeting a large and fast-growing segment of the wealth management infrastructure market, where RIAs and family offices are being pushed to deliver “family CFO” services without the back-end systems to support them at scale.
As wealth managers expand beyond portfolio construction into bill pay, capital call funding and other payments, operational complexity has exploded while most firms still rely on email, spreadsheets, and custodian portals to execute money movements. This disconnect creates a significant market opportunity for a purpose-built treasury platform that centralizes payment requests, automates maker-checker workflows, and connects directly to custodians and banks via real-time APIs.
Atomic Invest
Atomic Invest, the white-labeled investing platform powering fintechs and financial institutions, today announced the acquisition of Groene Hart Financial Diensten, a Netherlands-based MiFID investment firm. The transaction has been approved by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), clearing a key regulatory step and allowing Atomic to scale its platform across Europe.
The acquisition gives Atomic a strong regulatory foothold in the EU and unlocks the ability to offer white-label wealth management, brokerage, and cash-management services to European fintechs and financial institutions. For Atomic’s partners, this means faster launches, local compliance built in, and the flexibility to deliver investing and savings products directly inside their own platforms.
Groene Hart Financial Diensten will be fully integrated into Atomic Invest’s European operations. The combined company will work closely with partners to offer localized investment and brokerage services, including country-specific tax reporting, support for tax-advantaged account structures, and products tailored to local market needs.
Capital Engine
Capital Engine®, a global FinTech and investment bank building mission-critical infrastructure for the estimated $65 trillion private markets, today announced a strategic alliance with Regiment Securities, LLC (Regiment), a FINRA-registered financial services firm, to expand private-market distribution, co-syndication capabilities, and marketplace connectivity.
The alliance is designed to enable the co-syndication of select private investment opportunities across both firms’ curated investor networks, broadening discovery and access while maintaining disciplined, compliant capital-formation processes. The collaboration reflects a shared commitment to modernising private markets through technology, transparency, and scalable infrastructure.
The partnership builds on an existing relationship, as Regiment is a client of Capital Engine, leveraging Capital Engine’s technology to streamline operations and support private-market activity within a modern, digital framework.
Connect Trade
Connect Trade, an API-first connectivity layer for retail brokers and trading platforms, today announced a strategic collaboration with Benzinga, a leading financial media and data provider headquartered in Detroit. The collaboration will make Benzinga’s real-time news, analysis, and content more accessible to the exploding ecosystem of retail trading platforms and brokers around the world looking to plug into U.S. markets.
By pairing Benzinga’s content and data with Connect Trade’s unified brokerage infrastructure, the relationship helps platforms deliver richer trading experiences for idea discovery, market context, and execution are tightly integrated.
The collaboration will enable platforms connected to Connect Trade to incorporate Benzinga content directly into their user experiences by supporting use cases such as in-app news feeds, opinions on bull vs. bear investor sentiment, and more. The offering is particularly valuable for international brokers and fintechs that want to offer U.S. market access but lack the in-house resources to manage multiple data and brokerage integrations.
Docupace
Docupace, the premier provider of back-office software to streamline operations of wealth management enterprises and financial advisors, today announced the appointment of Scott Willette as Chief Technology Officer. An accomplished technology executive with more than two decades of leadership experience, Willette will oversee Docupace’s engineering organization, platform architecture, and long-term technology strategy, with a focus on cloud modernization and scalable innovation.
Willette joins Docupace at a pivotal moment as the company accelerates its evolution into a product-led, AI-enabled, and client-obsessed organization. In his new role, he will lead Docupace’s AI-powered scaling initiatives, strengthen engineering and infrastructure capabilities, spearhead the company’s strategic transition to AWS cloud services, and reimagine the company’s QA function, among other key initiatives.
Willette is widely regarded as a transformational leader who has scaled high-performing software organizations and led global teams of hundreds of technologists. Prior to joining Docupace, he held senior technology leadership roles at Litera, PatientPay, Digital Turbine, MicroPact, and LexisNexis, where he drove platform modernization, improved product velocity, and enhanced software quality.
Empower
Empower, a leading provider of retirement and wealth management solutions,1 today announced that Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, has joined its private markets investment partnership program — expanding the range of private market strategies available to millions of American retirement savers.
Empower’s initiative enables defined contribution plans to incorporate private equity, private credit, private infrastructure, and private real-estate exposure via collective investment trust (CIT) structures.
With the addition of Blackstone, Empower is now adding a leading provider of private market investments to its platform. Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager, with over $1.2 trillion in assets under management. The firm was a first mover in the individual investor space, with a track record of providing private markets solutions to individuals since 2002. Blackstone offers access to institutional-caliber investment opportunities across private equity, real estate, private credit and infrastructure. The firm has a dedicated business unit focused on retirement solutions — underscoring its commitment to bringing private markets access to workplace-savings vehicles.
FMG
FMG, the industry leader in marketing automation software for financial advisors and advisory firms, today announced executive leadership appointments to support continued growth and platform innovation for its enterprise and direct clients across RIAs, broker-dealers, wirehouses, regional firms, and insurance organizations.
FMG co-founder Dave Christensen has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, and Michelle Feinstein has joined FMG as Chief Product and Strategy Officer, succeeding Dave in his previous role. Additionally, Mo Ayadi joins as Chief Information Officer, leading the Information Technology and Security teams.
Scott White will transition to FMG’s Board of Directors after nearly a decade as Chief Executive Officer. As a Board member, Scott will continue to provide strategic guidance to FMG, building on his tenure strengthening the firm’s position as the platform of choice for advisors.
iCapital
iCapital1, the global fintech company shaping the future of investing, today announced its membership in the World Economic Forum (WEF), joining a global community dedicated to improving the state of the world. Through dialogue and engagement with influential leaders from business, government, academia, and civil society, iCapital will share expertise, drive thought leadership, and support educational efforts that promote transformative solutions that will shape the future of global investing.
This year’s Annual Meeting theme, “A Spirit of Dialogue,” reflects the Forum’s mission to foster constructive engagement on critical issues, such as economic resilience, technological transformation, and sustainability.
Through participation in the Forum’s Centre for Monetary and Financial Systems, iCapital will contribute insights on modernizing financial infrastructure and advancing innovation. The company’s engagement will center on topics such as digital transformation, blockchain, data analytics, and retirement-investing areas that are reshaping global markets and investor access. As part of the WEF membership, iCapital will also become a member of the WEF Innovator Community, Unicorn Program—an invite-only, curated network of technology-driven, high-growth companies shaping the future of global industries.
iCapital
iCapital1, the global fintech company shaping the future of investing, today announced Gary Gallagher has been appointed President, and will report to Lawrence Calcano, Chairman and CEO. As a key member of the executive management team, Gallagher will help lead the company’s go to market activities —overseeing client relationships, driving investment product distribution, and scaling platform and technology initiatives across the U.S.
Gallagher has over three decades of experience in building and scaling financial advisory businesses. He served on the executive team at Fidelity Institutional, most recently as Head of Strategic Business Development, where he forged partnerships with private equity firms, wealth tech providers, asset managers, and industry influencers to drive revenue growth. Gary oversaw investment platforms and advisory solutions spanning managed accounts, alternative investments, digital assets, portfolio engineering, and research. Previously, he was President of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Advisor, enabling advisory capabilities for intermediary clients, and held senior leadership roles in product, platform, and business development at LPL Financial, Citibank, and KPMG. A frequent speaker at industry events such as MMI and FSI, Gary also serves on advisory boards for fintech and asset management firms. He earned a BBA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
In 2025, iCapital grew its total global workforce by 31% to more than 2,200 people worldwide and expanded its global footprint with new offices in Sydney, Abu Dhabi, and Miami—underscoring its commitment to innovation and supporting client success. The company strengthened its leadership team with notable hires and appointments, Henrique Francisco as Chief Technology Officer, Jeff McGoey as Chief Operating Officer, and Sonali Basak as Chief Investment Strategist, while also promoting Bekka Marrs to Chief Product Officer.
Linvo
Linvo, a Swiss-based wealth management firm, today announced an initiative to integrate artificial intelligence across its asset management services through a strategic fintech partnership.
The integration enables clients to access portfolio information, request services, and receive responses in real time – without paperwork or delays. Advisors will use the same AI tools to deliver faster, data-driven support.
Linvo is among the first Swiss wealth management firms to pursue full AI integration across both client-facing and advisory operations.
Ninth Wave
Ninth Wave, the leading provider of open finance connectivity and services, today announced the launch of Compass, an AI-driven onboarding assistant that dramatically simplifies and accelerates bank integration into the open finance ecosystem, while improving accuracy, predictability, and overall time-to-market.
Onboarding has traditionally been one of the most complex and time-intensive stages of open finance integration. Financial institutions must align APIs with open finance standards, reconcile differences in data formats, validate consent and authentication workflows, and navigate extensive technical documentation—often through slow, manual, trial-and-error processes. Compass fundamentally transforms this model by serving as an intelligent guide throughout the onboarding journey, providing clear direction and automation at every step of the integration process.
Using AI-powered automation, Compass analyzes and tests a bank’s APIs to identify gaps, inconsistencies, or mismatches that must be resolved to comply with open finance standards. This includes evaluating how account and transaction data are formatted, how customer consent is captured and managed, and how authentication processes operate. Rather than relying on repeated back-and-forth between teams, Compass proactively surfaces issues and provides clear, actionable guidance on what needs to change.
Opto Investments
Fidelis Capital (“Fidelis”), an advisor-owned wealth management firm serving ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), multi-generational families and institutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Opto Investments, a platform that streamlines the entire private markets lifecycle to enable wealth managers to build, fundraise for, and manage programs at scale.
Fidelis will leverage Opto’s end-to-end platform to deliver actively managed private markets vintage funds to the multi-generational families, entrepreneurs and institutions it serves through a simplified, digitized experience.
Founded in 2022 by former private-banking professionals from Wells Fargo and Bank of America, Fidelis was established to deliver a more personalized wealth management experience, returning to the original promise of private banking—where clients’ interests were served without legacy institutional conflicts. Today, the firm manages $2.2 billion in assets for approximately 130 clients nationwide. Although Fidelis has already built deep relationships with venture capital, private equity and real estate managers, it saw room to expand its clients’ private markets exposure. To address this, the firm partnered with Opto to collaborate directly with its team of technologists, private markets investors and operational specialists—using its platform to strengthen due diligence, accelerate deal sourcing and enhance transparency in an often opaque asset class.
Sophitron
According to a survey conducted by LendingTree, https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/ai-chatbot-users/, 49% of AI chatbot users report that AI has influenced a financial decision, and 26% of users typically turn to chatbots for financial information. Among them, 61% seek help with personal finance management, 42% inquire about stock market trends, and 40% request assistance with public services such as Medicaid.
Despite this demand, a significant limitation remains: ChatGPT and similar models can only provide general advice because they lack specific “knowledge” of an individual’s financial profile—including income, spending habits, and retirement accounts. Consequently, the guidance offered is often generic and not directly applicable to the user’s unique situation.
Sophtron is addressing this gap as the AI Agent connecting millions of users to their bank, credit card, investment, mortgage, loan, and utility accounts. By providing a comprehensive view of a user’s financial status, Sophtron now makes this critical data available within AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
T. Rowe Price
T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ-GS: TROW), a global asset management firm and a leader in retirement, has launched Income Solver® through its fintech subsidiary Retiree Inc., a software tool that helps financial advisors differentiate their practice by elevating retirement planning with advanced, multi-dimensional withdrawal strategies. The software helps financial advisors develop personalized withdrawal strategies for their clients, which coordinate their clients’ withdrawals from investment assets, Social Security, Medicare premiums, and other income sources whileseekingto minimize the impact of complex tax rules. These outcomes are rooted in a proprietary methodology that our research indicates can help extend a client’s retirement income up to an additional seven years or $1 million after taxes.
The addition of Retiree, Inc.’s Income Solver builds on T. Rowe Price’s robust suite of retirement income solutions for advisors and is supported by “Solving the Retirement Income Puzzle,” an educational program that provides advisors with content they can use to teach and assist pre-retirees in navigating the complexities of retirement income planning.
TaxStatus
TaxStatus, a secure, personalized data solution for verified financials used by financial professionals and their clients, today announced the launch of two new productivity tools designed to help financial advisors, accountants, and tax preparers improve accuracy, efficiency, and client readiness ahead of the 2025 filing season.
The TaxStatus Tax Prep Checklist is a client-facing deliverable that advisors and tax professionals can share with clients to help them prepare to file their 2025 tax return. What differentiates this new solution from existing checklists is that it clearly identifies the specific documents and information a client needs by source and document type based on the individual’s prior tax data so that the taxpayer doesn’t have to try to identify what is needed. Instead of the typical general instructions to find W-2s, 1099s, and other tax forms, the Tax Prep Checklist shows each specific tax document, by category for each taxpayer that should be provided to the CPA by name.
The checklist also gives advisors a timely reason to secure client consent in January, creating a smooth and positive Q1 client touchpoint while helping clients feel more prepared and supported throughout tax season. The source of the data is derived directly from the IRS through a digital consent process by the client which takes less than a minute to complete. Download a sample here.
THOR Financial Technologies
THOR Financial Technologies today announced that Behind the Ticker, the established ETF-focused podcast hosted by Brad Roth, Chief Investment Officer of THOR Financial Technologies, will launch on ETF.com beginning January 30. The show will be featured on ETF.com and will also be available wherever podcasts are streamed, including major platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Released weekly, Behind the Ticker features in-depth conversations with entrepreneurs and experts across the wealth management industry, with a particular focus on the evolution and innovation happening in ETFs. Each episode goes “behind the ticker” to explore what drives these professionals day-to-day, how they achieved their success, where they see opportunities for disruption in the industry, and the challenges and obstacles they’ve faced along the way.
As part of the new partnership, THOR Financial Technologies and ETF.com plan to produce a trial run of 20 episodes, bringing the show to ETF.com’s audience while continuing to expand its reach across the broader ETF and wealth management community.
Tradestation
TradeStation Securities, Inc. (“TradeStation Securities”), an award-winning†, self-clearing online brokerage firm for trading stocks, options, futures, and futures options, announced the release of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) connection, built by its affiliate TradeStation Technologies, Inc. The initial release is configured to work with Claude, an AI assistant developed by Anthropic, PBC, with enhancements coming soon to work with additional popular AI platforms for users to choose from. Building on TradeStation’s reputation for delivering high-end trading technology and reliable brokerage services, the new service underscores the company’s commitment to sophisticated traders.
TradeStation is working to redefine what it means to trade in the modern era, evolving to deliver next-generation solutions designed to empower its customers. The company’s latest development enables users to connect AI assistants to their TradeStation accounts, giving them an exciting new way to interact with their trading tools and the market. Some of these AI assistants have features that allow for a conversational trading experience and may be able to assist with certain analysis of account positions or automate actions for traders.*
TradeStation’s MCP connection is now available to customers, subject to applicable account minimums and approvals. Access to Claude through the TradeStation MCP requires users to have an active Claude Pro subscription, which can be obtained directly through Anthropic.
TradingBlock
TradingBlock, recently named the “2025 Best Brokerage for Options Trading” by Benzinga, today announced that it is extending its history of innovation by joining Nant Global Finance, Inc. (“NANT”), a newly formed, fully integrated, blockchain-enabled capital markets platform, subject to final FINRA approvals.
Founded in 2003, TradingBlock is a technology-driven online brokerage designed for active and professional traders seeking control, transparency, and performance. TradingBlock provides electronic trading access to U.S. equities, options, and futures, supported by advanced order routing, customizable interfaces, and professional-grade options trading tools.
Built by traders, TradingBlock draws on decades of real-world experience that began on the Chicago Board Options Exchange trading floor. That heritage continues to shape the firm’s focus on customized execution capabilities, flexible platform design, and tools built to support sophisticated trading strategies.
Webull
Level2, an intuitive, fully visual platform, that simplifies strategy creation and automation for traders of all experience levels, today announced its partnership with Webull (NASDAQ: BULL), an online investment platform. Embedded directly into the Webull platform, Level2 empowers traders to create, test, and execute automated strategies without writing a single line of code, transforming the trading experience and redefining engagement.
The integration addresses a critical gap in the market: retail traders crave institutional-grade automation, but few platforms make it accessible. With Level2, Webull users gain professional-level automation without the technical barriers, rapid strategy testing for faster learning, and community insights to optimize performance, all within a single integrated trading environment.
Webull users can access the automation tools with a few clicks, while the backend handles execution seamlessly. No additional setup or coding is required, enabling immediate adoption and functionality.
