It requires little imagination to picture artificial intelligence as a potential career-killer. The reality, however, may be quite different for financial advisors.

Advisor headcount is actually expected to grow as AI expands productivity and work capacity, according to Cerulli research conducted from May to July at firms holding a combined $1.2 trillion in assets. Over the next two years, RIAs said they plan to do a lot of hiring, with 73% making junior advisors a top priority, 67% bringing on more service associates and more than half of firms focusing on senior advisors. All of that expansion is partially a result of AI reducing manual and administrative work while improving the quality of client communications.

“It is not lost upon the financial industry that this is a huge deal,” tech-stock bull Dan Ives said during a panel at the Future Proof Festival this week. He said the AI revolution will be a net positive across all industries. “More jobs will be created than taken away when it’s all said and done.”

Harnessing AI effectively is also essential to attracting more clients, especially at the high-net-worth end of the market amid the great wealth transfer, said David Barnard, founder of estate planning fintech firm Luminary. “The firms that get this right are not just going to win the great wealth transfer, they’re going to grow their businesses faster today,” he told Advisor Upside.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

But while it often feels like AI is the only thing business executives are talking about, full adoption of the tech is actually quite shallow, with only 12% of firms qualifying as “leaders” in Cerulli’s framework:

• Most firms are using AI in some capacity, but they’re still very much in the piloting phases, with models serving as notetakers and email drafters and handling CRM updates.
• Meanwhile, less than a third of RIAs have fully adopted an AI game plan, with the tech integrated across workflows and governed by a documented strategy.
• For the many firms still in early stages of their AI journeys, compliance, regulatory and data privacy concerns remain top barriers, followed by a lack of internal knowledge about how to use the tech.

“We expected the biggest firms or the biggest technology spenders to be furthest ahead, but the real differentiator was operational discipline,” Asher Cheses, senior director of wealth management consulting at Cerulli, said in an email. He added that the advisors who learn how to effectively incorporate AI into their workflows will have a significant advantage, while those who fail to adapt risk falling behind.

It Can Happen to You. In the meantime, there are instances of AI already replacing advisors. Domain Money, the RIA founded by venture capitalist Adam Dell, recently laid off “about half” of its financial planning team, InvestmentNews reported. Dell told the outlet the layoffs were a result of “improved automation and efficiency” that let one Domain Money advisor serve up to 150 clients.

Maybe that techno nightmare is more than just a bad dream.

Let’s just come right out and say it: It’s a good time to sell a registered investment advisor practice.

We’ve all read headlines about sky-high multiples and firm owners fielding multiple calls a day from potential suitors. It’s an environment where successful founders can generate tremendous value from selling their firms. The process isn’t simple, however, and there are pitfalls that owners can stumble into, potentially robbing them of hard-earned enterprise value.

Adam Lewis, partner at Vedder Price, talked through these dynamics this week during a standing-room only session at the Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, California. While he advises on M&A across multiple industries, the world of wealth management stands apart in 2026 as the “strongest by far” in terms of dealmaking activity. The entrance of private equity buyers in the RIA space has been particularly significant, with the heightened competition among buyers helping ramp up valuations. It’s a great environment for sellers who hope to monetize their life’s work to fund their retirement lifestyle and potentially create intergenerational wealth, Lewis said. But it’s important to be diligent and bring the right expertise to the table during the negotiation process.

Let’s Make a Plan

“I know it sounds self-serving, being an M&A attorney, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to come to the negotiating table fully prepared for what this process entails,” Lewis said. “The key to a successful outcome, especially for sellers, is to pre-plan and negotiate terms with your house in order.”

Every deal is unique, but there are principles that support good outcomes for sellers. One is understanding the roles of third parties that are likely to be involved in the process, Lewis said:

• An investment banker, for example, should be good at crunching the numbers and setting agreeable financial terms.
• A dedicated M&A attorney, on the other hand, can help an advisor negotiate the deal structure in a clear, actionable letter of intent.

“I would particularly stress the importance of deal structure and getting that right from the start,” Lewis said. “The tax consequences of how a deal is structured can be profound. The headline purchase price is only the beginning of the after-tax calculation.”

For the typical RIA, the overwhelming economic value generally is in client relationships and goodwill rather than hard assets changing hands. This can become a substantial negotiating issue, as are topics like cash consideration versus equity compensation.

Post-Sales Strategies. Most RIA deals involve earn-out provisions that help to align buyer and seller interests. “Everyone wants to focus on the multiple, but negotiating the terms of these earn-out agreements is critical,” Lewis said. “Setting reasonable growth standards is something I advise my clients to do, for example. You’ve sold the practice, yes, but it’s important to negotiate some control to make sure that you can hit the targets that are set, and they should be reasonable.”

Move over, X. This might be the real everything app.

Anthropic released Claude for Financial Advisors yesterday, a suite of AI tools designed to help wealth managers with research, portfolio oversight, administrative tasks and more. Essentially, it’s an AI layer that connects Claude to the disparate programs and tools advisors already use, including platforms and data providers from BlackRock to Charles Schwab, Addepar, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, Wealthbox, Wealth.com and Zocks.

The launch marks the latest move from Anthropic to embed itself in the financial services industry. Earlier this year, the company released 10 AI agents designed for financial workflows, including building pitchbooks, screening Know Your Customer (KYC) files maintained for compliance and reviewing financial statements. Major institutions including Goldman Sachs and Citi have deployed the technology across their operations.

All Aboard

Charles Schwab will be the platform’s debut custodian, and it aims to bring Claude for Financial Advisors to the more than 16,000 RIAs it serves. “Anthropic is building AI at the frontier of what’s possible,” Jon Beatty, head of Schwab Advisor Services, said in a statement. “Bringing this solution directly to our clients, purpose-built for the environment they operate in, is how we help advisors claim the next frontier of advice.”

Anthropic’s statement announcing the new product included a whopping 18 comments from a who’s who of wealth management. “I don’t want my CFPs spending hours every week laboring over CRM updates and task assignments,” said Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz. “I want them talking to clients and engaged in the planning itself, because that’s the part clients truly value.” Dynasty Financial Partners CEO Shirl Penney said, “This is the moment the industry stops adapting to AI and starts running on it.”

If You Build It, They Will Come. Anthropic isn’t alone in its Wall Street pursuits. Just last week, OpenAI released ChatGPT for Financial Services, which caters to investment bankers and equity researchers. And it’s no mystery why AI firms are increasingly cozying up to wealth management firms: They spend a lot of money on building out their AI capabilities, and they plan on spending even more. Cerulli expects AI spending per firm to reach nearly $500,000 this year, more than double last year’s total.

In the here and now, meanwhile, Monday’s announcement was nothing if not timely. Anthropic is no doubt eager to remind people of the benefits of artificial intelligence after a spree of headlines warning that unfettered development of the technology may pose an existential threat to the human race.