Question: Oh, Magic 8 Ball, will the Securities and Exchange Commission approve prediction-market ETFs? Answer: Ask again later.

Last week, the SEC instructed staff to seek public input on exchange-traded funds tied to election results and economic data outcomes. Prediction markets remain largely uncharted territory for both exchange-traded funds and traditional finance overall. Bringing one of investing’s most trusted wrappers into what many still view as pseudo-gambling is a major decision, and regulators appear determined to move carefully. “If these make it to market, it will set a precedent that’s hard to undo,” said Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “You’d be letting the genie out of the bottle, and because of how endless the possibilities are, the SEC is really trying to make sure they get it right,” he said, adding the funds will likely eventually launch, potentially later this summer.

Most advisors probably have little interest in using prediction markets directly, but ETFs tied to them could still attract significant investor demand. The appeal is familiar: ETFs are liquid, inexpensive, easy to access and already widely trusted by retail investors. “If you’re used to using Charles Schwab, Fidelity or Vanguard, you probably don’t want to open a Polymarket account,” Balchunas told Advisor Upside. “People want everything inside their brokerage account.”

The Betting Type

The 24 delayed ETF filings come from asset managers including Roundhill Investments, GraniteShares and Bitwise Asset Management. Most would track election outcomes, which Balchunas believes would likely attract the bulk of investor assets. “The industry will make some wild ones, but most of the money will probably go toward funds focused on presidential elections and Federal Reserve rate movements,” he said.

On the surface, prediction markets often resemble sports betting because users buy and sell contracts tied to specific outcomes. Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket allow people to wager on almost anything, including:

• Whether the US will enter a recession during a certain time frame.
• Whether oil will reach $115 a barrel.
• Even whether The Mandalorian & Grogu will land a strong Rotten Tomatoes score.

Still, supporters argue prediction markets are more than speculation. “I find myself relying on them more and more as an indicator of what the markets are really thinking,” Ben Snider, chief equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, said at a recent event. “I have AI combine Kalshi, Polymarket, anything else I can find, and aggregate them across my screen.”

Recalculating. Historically, Wall Street created financial products first and later packaged them for retail investors. Prediction markets, much like crypto before them, are reversing that process, emerging from decentralized internet communities before being absorbed into traditional finance. “It’s an unusual direction,” Balchunas said. “But if something works, Wall Street will eventually capitalize on it.”

Advisors spent the better part of two decades worrying whether new technologies would replace them. Sure, they escaped the robo-advisor revolution, but artificial intelligence tools promise to be much more transformative, and they’re just getting started.

Addepar CEO Eric Poirier, however, says new tech isn’t going to replace financial advisors nearly as fast as it reshapes the work they do behind the scenes. “The world of wealth management is fundamentally predicated on human-to-human trust,” he said. “We don’t see that changing.” That doesn’t mean the industry sidesteps disruption. Addepar, the wealth data platform used by more than 1,400 firms aggregating $9 trillion, recently launched an AI agent that allows advisors to query client and portfolio data while also providing aggregated data tools to benchmark private markets, arguably the industry’s most opaque asset class. The tech combines language models, but still keeps humans in the loop. “AI is just not good at calcs,” he said.

We sat down with Poirier at Addepar’s annual meeting in New York City last week to talk artificial intelligence, held-away assets, private markets and why AI still can’t be trusted to do the math.

Read more.

Should I stay or should I go?

That’s the question many advisors are asking about attending industry conferences in 2026. There’s an overwhelming amount of options, and the rise of online learning has changed the calculus on traveling to expensive locales for continuing education credits that could just as easily be attained online. In fact, sticking to the traditional format may not be an option for live event organizers anymore. In 2019, 32% of CE was earned at live events, but that percentage fell to just 11% by 2024, according to the Investments & Wealth Institute. The firm’s CEO, Sean Walters, thinks that number could drop even further.

“I’ve been organizing and attending conferences for more than 30 years,” Walters told Advisor Upside. “I spent significant time in 2024 and 2025 gathering information from IWI members, speakers and event sponsors to understand their evolving preferences. There’s no doubt that we’re at something of a crossroads for industry events.”

What Advisors Want

In this environment, some organizers are choosing a different route to the traditional advisor conference, favoring smaller events devoted to more specific training and exclusive network building. They believe advisors are ready for something new, and that vision seems to be resonating.

“One big change is offering up a lot more peer-to-peer learning time,” Walters said. At one recent IWI event, for example, much of the conference’s second day was devoted to small-group workshops and 20-minute meetings where advisors could exchange ideas and talk about shared challenges. The idea was to provide something advisors can’t get online, or at a massive conference featuring product demos and VIP presentations.

“Our attendees are highly experienced, tenured pros,” Walters said. “Most don’t want to sit in a conference hall listening to PowerPoint presentations.” Instead, they want close access to experts in more of a collaborative setting, where they ask questions and learn from their peers about how to structure their firm and how to win the best clients.

Intimate Is the Word. The American College of Financial Services is taking a similar approach, said Jared Trexler, the college’s chief marketing and strategy officer, at least as it pertains to its new Horizons retirement conference. The event is exclusively focused on teaching about retirement income, long-term care planning and related behavioral finance topics. It also provides a sense of exclusivity, with only about 500 people attending. “We’ll probably never get much bigger,” Trexler said. “Building an event that is intimate is a real thing to us. We don’t want advisors to feel like they’re a commodity.”