We may be living through the golden age of registered investment advisors.

Charles Schwab’s latest RIA Benchmarking Study paints a picture of an industry that has mastered the fundamentals. RIAs have retained 97% of their clients over the past decade. “It’s one of their superpowers,” said Lisa Salvi, managing director of Charles Schwab Advisor Services. That level of retention is virtually unheard of in financial services, she added, reflecting the deep relationships and high-touch service that RIAs provide. Also, the median firm’s assets under management have grown from just over $150 million in 2005 to $712 million in 2025.

But success has raised the bar. As firms mature, squeezing out even one additional percentage point of organic growth has become increasingly difficult. According to Salvi, practices that adopt technologies like artificial intelligence or replace informal business development efforts with structured growth plans can unlock meaningful gains in both growth and firm value.

The AI Revolution

Many advisors took their first steps toward AI adoption by using models for meeting notes. Now, Schwab says firms should think much bigger.

Like the arrival of personal computers or the internet, AI should be viewed as a firmwide operational tool rather than a standalone technology, Salvi said. Beyond client meetings, firms are using AI in recruiting, administration, marketing and communications, with some even incorporating it into systems that house client data, though she warned that firms should be careful when doing so.

AI adoption has accelerated quickly. Some 83% of RIAs reported using AI, while roughly one-third said senior leadership has established a formal vision for how the technology should be integrated into the business. “AI is among the top strategic priorities for advisors, when it wasn’t even on the list a few years ago,” Salvi said. “It’s the No. 1 thing they want outside help with.”

The study also found:

• Firms with a written marketing plan, a clear definition of their ideal client and an articulated value proposition attracted 87% more new clients and 127% more new client assets in 2025 compared to the previous year.
• After financial planning and tax services, charitable giving and estate planning are the fastest-growing services RIAs have added in recent years.

Tell Your Friends. While client referrals remain one of the industry’s biggest growth opportunities, fewer than half of RIAs have a formal strategy for generating or tracking referrals.

The process doesn’t have to be complicated, Salvi said. Advisors can simply ask at the end of a meeting whether a friend or family member could benefit from financial advice, or mention a service that might be relevant to someone in the client’s network. Just as important, firms should measure which conversations actually produce referrals. “You can’t just tell your advisors, ‘Everyone needs to get five more clients,’” Salvi said. “You need to track what actually gets them there.”

It’s getting better all the time.

Wall Street is celebrating a second quarter that delivered stellar earnings for banks, wirehouses and asset managers alike. With major indexes up roughly 10% so far this year, a rising tide is lifting fee revenue even as high-net-worth clients generating more wealth are increasingly looking for sophisticated advice.

Things are going so well, in fact, that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon used his firm’s earnings call this week to make a colorful boast about his wealth unit’s leadership. “It’s a great team of people, which I am fully confident if I was hit by a truck, which is not my preference, we would be fine,” he said.

It’s a Numbers Game

Dimon’s confidence is backed by hard data, a trend mirrored across the wealth management landscape. At JPMorgan alone, profit in the asset and wealth management unit surged 33% year over year to about $2 billion, pushing client assets up 19% to $7.7 trillion.

Similarly, Citigroup’s wealth division marked its ninth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, with profits leaping 51% year over year to top $580 million. Almost two-thirds of the unit’s new asset growth came from deepening relationships with existing clients.

That massive asset influx was a recurring theme among the wirehouses (UBS reports later this month):

• Morgan Stanley’s wealth and investment management businesses crossed a historic milestone, reaching $10 trillion in total client assets after pulling in a record $148 billion in net new assets this quarter, according to the firm’s earnings report on Wednesday. While just over half of those inflows stemmed from client IPOs in the firm’s workplace channel, meaning they weren’t entirely driven by traditional advised clients, the sheer scale remains impressive.
• Meanwhile, Bank of America’s global wealth unit, which includes both BofA Private Bank and Merrill Lynch, saw profits skyrocket a whopping 42% to $1.4 billion, fueled by $4.4 billion in management fees.
• Wells Fargo rode the same wave, reporting a 28% jump in wealth division profit alongside a 15% expansion in client assets.

On the asset management side, the scale of inflows was historic. BlackRock’s total assets under management grew 22%, driven by a record first-half net inflow of $321 billion as clients clamored for ETFs, private markets and active fixed-income strategies.

Don’t Get Too Excited. It’s safe to say Wall Street is firing on all cylinders. However, there’s always room for caution, as JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum noted during the company’s earnings call that the market is “extremely risk-on” right now. Dimon added that “It’s getting close to as good as it gets. We just don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

After Taylor Swift’s recent marriage to Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, it feels like all anyone can talk about (besides whether staging a wedding at Madison Square Garden is tacky) is the couple’s prenup.

And for better or worse, recent studies confirm that prenups are on the rise well outside of the celebrity demographic. A survey conducted by Harris Poll for Bloomberg News this year found that 53% of engaged or married Americans under age 45 said they’d signed a prenup, up from 34% of millennials and 41% of Gen Zers just four years ago. As that number grows, helping clients think through their finances before marriage can be a way for advisors to stand out and set clients up for success.

“The reason why people shy away from talking about it is the perceived negativity, whereas the conversation can certainly be a positive one,” said Baylee Bryant, a CFP for Merit Financial Advisors. “Clarity never hurts, and so go into the conversation just being the information provider. You’re not betting on the worst outcome. You’re actually just giving the client a stronger foundation that hopefully can plant a seed that will last their entire marriage.”

Get It in Writing

Beyond the obvious benefits of protecting individual assets like real estate or family wealth, there are several other points that couples might address in a prenup. “If one partner has significantly more assets to protect before marriage, I’m a big fan of having the other partner consider including something that lets them continue to build some separate assets during the marriage,” said Kaylin Dillon, a CFP who specializes in prenups. That way, “there’s at least a pathway to both having equal safety nets, or even if they’re not equal safety nets, just both having your own safety nets.” Bryant suggested several other options:

• If one partner has significant debt, like student loans, the agreement can classify it as separate property.
• Especially in tech, compensation packages can include stock options or ownership stakes in companies. These arrangements can lay out how those are divided (or not).
• If one partner decides to stop working to take care of a family, prenups can account for that lost earning potential.

Step In Without Overstepping. Some advisors may think that prenups are the purview of a lawyer, and that their responsibility is just to suggest that their clients get one, said Dillon. “We have conversations all the time about clients’ estate plans. It’s not that different,” she said. “You don’t have to be an expert, and you certainly don’t need to and shouldn’t step into the role of an attorney. But there’s a lot of value you can add just helping clients think through what they should consider in their prenup.”