The Fiduciary Rule may be gone, but it’s definitely still a vibe.

The Biden-era legislation was struck down by a federal court last week after an almost decade-long saga, dating to an Obama administration push to make clients’ best interest mandatory in selecting financial products, especially in defined contribution plans and 401(k) rollovers. For advisors, that means a legal fiduciary obligation is no longer universally required with the industry now working under the longstanding “five-part test” (even though everyone hates taking tests). But even if the Department of Labor’s Retirement Security Rule is dead, the questions it raised about serving clients appropriately are very much alive.

“More people are starting to ask how their advisor is paid and whether they’re truly acting in their best interest,” said Carla Adams of Ametrine Wealth. “That shift in awareness may end up being the most meaningful long-term impact.”

32 Flavors and then Some

It’s not a secret in the industry that the term financial advisor can mean a fiduciary practitioner, a broker, an insurance agent or, increasingly, some combination of all three. But that concept is simply not on most Americans’ radar. “Most people don’t realize there are different standards, fiduciary vs. suitability, or why that even matters for their own money,” Adams said. “Without the fiduciary rule, there’s lots of room for recommendations that benefit the advisor more than the client, especially when it comes to big decisions like rolling over a 401(k).”

While Adams said the ruling is a negative for consumers, she pointed out that the issue at hand isn’t the fees themselves that clients may rack up. “To be clear, charging a fee on those assets isn’t inherently a bad thing if the advisor is providing real, ongoing value,” she said. “The issue is that many clients don’t fully understand what they’re paying, or what they’re getting in return.”

Insurance lobbyists applauded the decision and said the new rules give Americans more choice. The Department of Labor said it has no plans to attempt a new rule and seek public input. According to a government release:

• The agency’s Employee Benefits Security Administration is responsible for more than 156 million Americans, who are covered by approximately 2.6 million health plans and 801,000 private retirement plans.
• Together, those plans hold almost $14 trillion in assets.

“The challenged regulation wrongly sought to impose ERISA fiduciary status on securities brokers and insurance agents when there was not a relationship of trust and confidence,” Daniel Aronowitz, assistant secretary of labor for employee benefits security, said in a statement. “The Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators regulate the activities of securities brokers and insurance agents and will continue to do so.”

Cat’s Out of the Bag. While the rule lost in court, it may have won in the court of public opinion. In fact, the real impact of the legislation may have nothing to do with enforcement at all, said Joon Um of Secure Tax & Accounting. “For clients, it just means they need to be a bit more aware and ask a few basic questions,” he said.

For advisors who already operate under a fiduciary mindset, it’s business as usual. And, the rest of the industry isn’t likely to change their business models following the court’s decision, which was widely anticipated. “The rule may be gone, but it got people thinking,” Um said. “That’s likely the biggest impact.”

There’s one clear winner in the technological arms race playing out among wealthtech firms: financial advisors, who want tax-savvy investing tools.

AssetMark announced this morning the launch of new features on its Adhesion wealth platform for registered investment advisors, including more advanced direct indexing and separately managed account capabilities. The goal is to help RIAs scale up their tax-aware planning skills in a world where wealth management clients are increasingly demanding of their financial professionals, said AssetMark CEO Michael Kim. Other wealthtech firms share that vision, with the likes of Altruist, April and more announcing tax-focused platform enhancements this year alone. Safe to say, RIAs looking for tools to create tax alpha are spoiled for choice, while advisors who fail to incorporate tax planning risk falling behind.

“We invested more than $60 million in technology development last year alone,” Kim told Retirement Upside, noting that, like its RIA clients, AssetMark is striving to meet an evolving set of investor expectations. “AssetMark has been in business for 30 years this year. We can confirm that RIAs are being asked to deliver more personalization, more tax efficiency and broader access to investment opportunities than ever before.”

How AssetMark Is Responding

Adhesion platform enhancements on track for this year also include daily account monitoring and optimization for tax-sensitive portfolio transitions, as well as monthly and year-end account-level tax savings reporting and ready-to-use ETF, mutual fund and equity SMA portfolios.

“These enhancements are a direct reflection of what we’re hearing from advisors about where their businesses are headed and what their clients expect next,” said Phill Rogerson, head of the RIA channel at AssetMark. “Everything we’re rolling out is designed to help RIAs grow faster and operate more efficiently.”

Rocket Fuel for RIAs? Data from Cerulli Associates shows the independent and hybrid RIA industry is already growing:

• Assets under management grew at annualized rates of approximately 10.9% for independent RIAs and 12.2% for hybrids over the past decade.
• These segments’ combined share of total wealth management industry assets grew from 21% in 2014 to 27% in 2024.

Kim and Rogerson said tax-planning tools can help maintain, and potentially accelerate that pace. First, tax-aware investing keeps more money in clients’ pockets, thereby helping advisors grow their AUM. Second, in AssetMark’s experience, clients who get good tax planning are likely to refer their advisors to friends and family, further driving up organic growth.

Kim said advisors using AssetMark’s tax management services in 2025 generated an average annual tax savings to clients of 1.42%. “Numbers like that show the growing role tax efficiency plays in improving client outcomes and reinforcing advisor value,” he said. “For many advisors, that savings will cover their full fee.”

Financial advisors have a 21% chance of being replaced by AI, according to the sports betting site Action Network. (Not to sound cocky, but journalists have only a 13% chance.)

OK, maybe an odds tool from a random website isn’t the best metric for determining whether people will have jobs in the future, but it is safe to say AI is making inroads in the financial planning industry. Currently, tools are already acting as a co-pilot to advisors, assisting them with administrative tasks as well as some investment management suggestions. Most advisors, however, aren’t too worried about AI taking their jobs, given that financial planning requires just as much human empathy and behavioral know-how as it does book smarts. But predictions from groups like Forrester that just over 6%, or 10.4 million, US jobs will be replaced by AI and automation by 2030 are forcing some advisors to consider a backup plan.

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