Welcome to the March 2026 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors!
This month's edition kicks off with the news of Altruist's launch of a new AI-powered tax planning add-on to its Hazel AI notetaker, which triggered a big selloff in the stocks of established RIA custodians like Schwab, LPL, and Raymond James – but despite the media narrative that the volatility was a result of the threat of AI-driven disruption to the advisory industry as a whole, the real story (given that Altruist's tool was itself made for financial advisors) is about the threat that Altruist and its rapid technology innovation poses to other custodians, and how they might now see Altruist as a true competitor (even though they've been gaining momentum and market share on the back of their technology for years)
From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:
- Jump and Zocks, the respective #1 and #2 market leaders in the advisor AI notetaker category, each announced Series B fundraising rounds, widening the gap in scale and capital between themselves and the remaining standalone notetakers – and suggesting that rather than being threatened by CRMs rolling out their own internal notetakers, the AI notetakers could instead be a threat to the CRMs themselves as they build out their CRM-like capabilities faster than the CRMs can respond
- FMG Suite has acquired Testimonial iQ, a tool that aimed to streamline the process of collecting and promoting client testimonials on Google Reviews – which in part highlights how advisor use of testimonial marketing has lagged in the years since the SEC revised its Marketing Rule to allow the solicitation and promotion of testimonials, making it hard for Testimonial iQ to persist as a standalone tool; but is also a story about how FMG Suite is aiming to cover virtually every part of the website-centered digital marketing funnel for advisors via its PE-funded acquisitions
- After a number of years where Holistiplan was the dominant tax planning software on the market, a slew of new competitors have recently arisen from both existing platforms (like Wealth.com, Nitrogen, and Altruist) and new startups (like Hive AI Tax and april) featuring AI-powered document extraction and AI-generated recommendations – which on the one hand could be troublesome for Holistiplan's incumbent stature if AI has erased the technology advantage it once had, but on the other hand could turn out to reinforce why Holistiplan became so popular to begin with (because it allowed for advisors to build the tax planning strategies they want to build, rather than feeding them recommendations they may or may not be comfortable giving to clients)
Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including:
- The AI meeting support startup Contio (founded by Riskalyze founder Aaron Klein) has launched its new MeetingOS software, a three-part tool that generates meeting agendas, provides real-time talking points and client information during the meeting itself, and logs meeting notes and follow-up tasks after the meeting, all with the goal of improving client meetings themselves rather than just the work before and after – however, since the problem with client meetings is often too much (rather than too little) information and agenda topics, it's possible that a tool like MeetingOS could create an information overload that prevents the advisor from staying present in the client conversation (which undermines much of the purpose of meeting with the client to begin with)
- Max (formerly MaxMyInterest) has launched a new private banking service for RIAs with ultra-high-net-worth clients, giving independent RIAs an option to offer access to the kinds of services provided in-house by private bank advisors (without the need to refer to a private bank who might subsequently pitch the client on their own wealth management services)
And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular "Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map" (and also added the changes to our AdvisorTech Directory) as well!
*To submit a request for inclusion or updates on the Financial Advisor FinTech Solutions Map and AdvisorTech Directory, please share information on the solution at the AdvisorTech Map submission form.
