Company
Cerulli Associates is a global research and consulting firm analyzing trends in asset management, wealth management, and financial services.
Some 40% of 401(k) pre-retirees want a personalized retirement plan and 39% want guaranteed monthly payments, a report found. The top ask is withdrawal at any time, at 46%, so the advisor opening is narrower than those two figures suggest.
Reality
The four wirehouses lost 517 advisors net in the first half of 2026, more than in all of 2025, Diamond Consultants reported. The cost shows up more in assets than in heads, with 41 departing teams each managing $500 million or more.
Reality
Cerulli Associates and Morningstar found 53.4% of advisors who don't prioritize wealth growth rank help converting 401(k) participants a top-three need. Recordkeepers are courting the same savers, so an advisor who turns away small accounts risks the sponsor and the eventual rollover.
Reality
InvestCloud is putting $50 million into tools that move advisers' clients into private markets, where Cerulli sees $2 trillion of new money in five years. The budget is 0.0025% of that flow, and the claim that software is the real barrier comes from a firm that sells it.
Reality
Betterment will charge RIAs 0.20% on custody assets under $10 million and 0.12% above that from Jan. 1, with a negotiated rate past $100 million. Setting the rate by assets held at Betterment pays advisers to move a bigger slice there while Schwab or Fidelity keeps the main book.
Reality
Cerulli surveyed firms holding a combined $1.2 trillion and found 73% of RIAs making junior advisors a top hiring priority for the next two years. Only 12% of those firms qualify as leaders on its own AI adoption framework.
Reality
Gerard Smyth credits meeting automation with 10 to 20 hours a week per advisor and AI summaries with five to 10 more, but the $1bn budget behind it comes with no advisor count and no revenue line to check it against.
Reality
Interactive Brokers is selling advisors published pricing, no custody fees and no ticket charges, while declining to say how much advisory money it actually holds, which leaves the wedge visible and its results unmeasurable.
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Bank fee hikes on trust work are a real exit signal for advisors with mass-affluent books, but the asset share it moves is 0.6 percentage points a year, and most of the RIA channel's headcount came from somewhere other than banks.
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A vendor survey says millennials are the most active donors right now. It also explains why the organisations sitting on boomer money are stuck.
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Cerulli puts the wealth transfer at $124 trillion by 2048, with $54 trillion going to surviving spouses who are 95% women. Firms servicing only the primary decision-maker face a structural loss.
Reality