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Meet Our Guest
This episode features Rich Cancro, CEO of AdvisorEngine, one of the wealth management industry’s most outspoken advocates for unified platform architecture. Rich joined what would become AdvisorEngine in 2014 and has spent more than a decade building toward a single thesis: that the advisor, the client, and business operations should all live inside one connected system, not across a patchwork of point solutions. Before AdvisorEngine, he spent 30 years in institutional financial technology — including roles at the Fed, Bank of New York, and Pershing — building the kind of scalable, enterprise-grade infrastructure that most RIA software vendors only approximate. He brings both the long view on platform consolidation and the engineering depth to know exactly where the complexity hides.
Six Things Worth Writing Down
Integration Depth Is the Only Integration That Counts — Plenty of vendors claim custodian integrations. AdvisorEngine’s Schwab integration routes alerts directly into workflows, supports all three trading modalities (iRebal, FIX, and the trade blotter), and monitors cash positions to automate disbursements end to end. If you can’t touch the custodian’s systems in real time, you’re not integrated — you’re just processing files.
NIGOs Are a Choice, Not a Fact of Life — One of AdvisorEngine’s clients told their team they “can’t create a NIGO” on the platform. That outcome is the product of intelligent, field-level workflow validation before anything touches the custodian. Nobody tracks NIGO reduction as a procurement metric, but they should — the downstream cost in phone calls, client friction, and staff time is enormous.
The Cost of Software Is Mostly Not Building It — Rich’s blunt take: building software is less than 10% of the total cost of running software. The integration maintenance, security updates, custodian form changes, transaction code shifts, and constant data normalization are where the real bill accumulates. With AI making the build cheaper than ever, the maintenance gap only widens. This is the argument against any advisory firm thinking about rolling their own.
Three Constituents, Not One — Most wealth platforms were built for advisors, then retrofitted for clients and operations as an afterthought. AdvisorEngine’s architecture was designed from the start around all three: the advisor, the client, and business operations — including the full range of what “operations” actually means (COO, client service admins, trade operations, compliance, finance). That design choice changes almost everything downstream.
CRM Is Already Table Stakes — AI Is Next — Every major wealth platform now has a CRM component. Orion bought Redtail. AdvisorEngine acquired Juncture. SS&C made their move. Rich’s argument is that AI is on exactly the same trajectory: within a few years, no serious platform will ship without an organic AI layer. Firms waiting for a standalone AI point solution to solve this are repeating the same mistake firms made with CRM.
Your CTO Probably Isn’t Who You Think — Rich made an argument worth sitting with: the CTO/CIO running your custodial or platform vendor’s engineering org has almost certainly built more complex, more regulated, more scalable systems than anyone a typical RIA could hire. AdvisorEngine’s CTO comes out of 30 years of institutional infrastructure. That accumulated engineering judgment is part of what you’re buying when you choose a platform over building your own.
In Their Own Words
“My joke is: if vendors’ integrations worked half as well as they say they do, we’d be out of business.” — Craig Iskowitz
“The new tagline for AdvisorEngine is to put Craig Iskowitz out of business.” — Rich Cancro
“One of the things we love about AdvisorEngine is we don’t get NIGOs.” — AdvisorEngine client COO, as quoted by Rich Cancro
“It’s not just a simple workflow — it’s an intelligent workflow, field by field, so that by the time it gets to the custodian, it’s in good order.” — Rich Cancro
“Whether it’s a year from now, two years, or three — AI is table stakes for every wealth platform. I don’t think there’s a world where you’re going to say, I have a portfolio management system that doesn’t have AI.” — Rich Cancro
“If you don’t have that depth of integration, you’re not a true scalable platform.” — Rich Cancro
What We Cover in This Episode
Technology & Platforms
AdvisorEngine — A full wealth platform serving RIAs and broker-dealers, covering CRM, digital account opening, money and asset movement, trade rebalancing, performance reporting, fee billing, and a white-label client portal and mobile app. The platform is designed to serve three distinct constituencies simultaneously: advisors, clients, and business operations staff — each with curated experiences and shared workflows.
AdvisorEngine Portfolio Solutions — A separately registered investment advisor (and TAMP) that sits alongside the technology entity, AdvisorEngine, Inc. Advisors can use the platform to self-manage assets, delegate to AdvisorEngine Portfolio Solutions, or run both simultaneously within a single interface. Household rebalancing is on the roadmap for year-end delivery.
Deep Custodian Integration — AdvisorEngine’s Schwab integration supports real-time alert routing into workflows, three-way trading connectivity (iRebal, FIX protocol, and the Schwab trade blotter), and an automated cash-disbursement pipeline that checks for available cash, triggers a raise-cash trade if needed, monitors completion, and then sends the disbursement — all without manual handoffs.
The Reporting Data Lake — AdvisorEngine’s performance reporting runs against a live data lake, delivering sub-second results across all data points. Rich contrasted this directly with competitors where reports are scheduled and returned as PDFs. Advisors can customize, share, and export in real time.
Tim Foley, Head of AI — AdvisorEngine’s recently appointed first head of artificial intelligence, described by Rich as someone who has spent years building advisor software and has been deep in AI for several years — a pairing of domain expertise and technical capability the company considers a major hire.
AI Partner Integrations — AdvisorEngine currently integrates with Jump, Zeplyn, and Zocks for AI note-taking and meeting intelligence. The company’s stated strategy is to continue integrating best-of-breed AI partners while simultaneously building native AI capabilities — particularly where AdvisorEngine’s own data assets create a proprietary advantage.
Strategic Themes
Platform vs. Point Solution — The Enduring Question — Rich’s framing of the best-of-breed vs. all-in-one debate: AdvisorEngine is all-in-one in architecture but open in philosophy. Deep integrations with point solutions are supported and maintained, but the platform’s value is in connecting the outputs of those integrations into coherent workflows rather than leaving advisors to stitch them together.
The Three-Constituent Design Principle — The fragmentation problem in advisor tech stems largely from platforms being designed for one user type and then expanded to accommodate others. AdvisorEngine’s architecture was built to serve advisors, clients, and business operations staff in parallel, with role-specific experiences and shared data.
AI as Platform Infrastructure, Not Feature — Rich’s view tracks with the CRM consolidation pattern: point solution AI tools will eventually be absorbed into wealth platforms the same way standalone CRM products were. The firms that build or acquire that layer now will own the advisor workflow interface in the next generation of the stack.
The Client Portal as Workflow Layer — The client portal is moving from dashboard to active workflow surface. Rich described a near-term vision where AI-generated meeting tasks flow into the portal so both the advisor and the client can see what each owes the other — transforming the client relationship from periodic check-ins to ongoing visible collaboration.
Software Maintenance Is the Real Moat — The argument against self-build is less about the cost of development and more about the compounding cost of upkeep: custodian form changes, transaction code updates, security patching, API versioning, and data normalization across multiple providers. Platform vendors absorb this on behalf of hundreds of firms simultaneously. No individual RIA can replicate that.
Business & Industry Context
The Origin of AdvisorEngine CRM — The CRM component of AdvisorEngine’s platform came via the acquisition of Juncture, formerly known under that name before being rebranded as AdvisorEngine CRM. Rich cited this alongside Orion’s acquisition of Redtail and SS&C’s CRM acquisition as evidence of an industry-wide move toward platform-native CRM — a pattern he argues is about to repeat with AI.
The NIGO Problem — Not in good order (NIGO) rejections from custodians represent one of the most measurable and undertracked cost centers in advisory operations. AdvisorEngine’s approach — intelligent field-level validation that catches problems before submission — has produced at least one firm that reports it can no longer generate a NIGO. Rich flagged this as a KPI the industry should be tracking more systematically.
AI Launches in the Industry — Rich noted that the earliest and most vocal AI adopters in the advisor community are increasingly aware of data security risks — specifically whether client data is being used to train third-party models. AdvisorEngine’s approach to vetting AI partners includes explicit contractual prohibitions on data training, alongside standard diligence on funding, founder track records, and ecosystem posture.
What’s Ahead in 2025 — Announced on the podcast: household rebalancing capability coming to the trade rebalancing module before year end. Continued investment in the reporting data lake. Native AI features building on AdvisorEngine’s proprietary data assets. And deeper integration between AdvisorEngine Portfolio Solutions (the TAMP) and the core advisor platform.
Podcast Intro
Here at Ezra Group, we’re experts on everything wealthtech, including CRM, portfolio management, trading, rebalancing, performance reporting, just to name a few. When we start working with an RIA or broker dealer, the first thing we do is a comprehensive tech stack assessment. This provides a top to bottom view of all systems and processes, and it’s a critical part of the firm’s growth plan, since the tech stack is the foundation for building towards the future.
So if you’d like to see your tech stack converted from a liability into an asset you need to run not walk to our website, EzraGroup.com, and click on the golden Contact Us button at the top of the homepage, the experienced team at Ezra Group will conduct a detailed tech stack assessment for you, delivering targeted recommendations that will optimize your existing software platforms. Or we can run an RFP process and help you select and then implement a new solution to help take your firm to the next level. You can schedule a free consultation by going to EzraGroup.com.
A few quick housekeeping tasks before we continue.
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- If you are a wealthtech vendor, please register for the Ezra Group WealthTech Integration Score Portal where you can update your integration data in real-time and improve your score.
Now let’s kick this thing off!
Quick Summary
Boost advisor confidence.
Podcast Transcript
Craig: All right. I’m excited to introduce our next guest. It’s Rich Cancro, CEO, AdvisorEngine. Rich buddy, it’s great to see you.
Rich: Craig, as always, great to see you. Looking forward to our conversation.
Craig: We already had a whole long conversation before I hit the record button. We really should start an NFL WealthTech podcast. We’re just NFL WealthTech guys, please talk about NFL.
Rich: 100%. It’d be fun to be talking about that. Maybe we should do it on a weekly basis and have a recap of the past week.
Craig: During the season, you mean?
Rich: During the season, yeah. A little weekly season. Maybe we’ll just do it as a one-off podcast for WealthTech or Wealth Management.
Craig: We’ll open it up to all Wealth Management. Or maybe FinTech NFL. You have to be in the FinTech space to talk NFL. And we’ll just do that. That could be a fun thing. Because I always feel like I could do a better job talking about what happened than some of these podcast guys.
Rich: I certainly feel the same way. There’s a lot of noise out there and not a lot of information. And just so anyone listening knows, I’m an Eagles fan and Rich is a Steelers fan.
Craig: So we don’t really butt heads.
Rich: We’re not in the same division or even the same conference, but it’s still fun to talk about. Well, that’s true, but I’m also a New Yorker, so we definitely butt heads, and we’re butting heads right now with the 76ers and the Knicks.
Craig: Yes, the Sixers are getting their kicked. O.G.—
Rich: Anunoby, I just killed his last name, by the way, just got a pulled hamstring, so we’re hoping he comes back soon.
Craig: Hopefully we’ll see if we can get something going, because it’s not looking good for the Sixers. But that’s a different issue. So enough of the talk. This is going to be live about a month from now, and the series will be over, and people are like, why are you talking about the Sixers?
Rich: All right, so enough of that.
Craig: Rich, let’s get back to basics here. We’re talking about WealthTech and AdvisorEngine. Give us a 30-second elevator pitch for AdvisorEngine.
Rich: Thanks, Craig. AdvisorEngine is a full wealth platform. That means end-to-end from CRM to digital onboarding tools, money movement, asset movement, trade rebalancing capability, performance reporting, fee billing, as well as a ton of workflows that connects all those pieces, and of course, a white label branded client portal and mobile app. And just a quick disclosure — we’re going to be talking about our TAMP as well. So there are two entities: AdvisorEngine, Inc., the tech company, and AdvisorEngine Portfolio Solutions, which is a registered investment advisor that serves other RIAs. Thank you, compliance.
Craig: That’s the regulatory announcement of the day. I think it’s the first one we’ve ever had on this podcast. This is a WealthTech podcast, but got to get it out there. So talking about a full wealth platform — if we can go up to the 30,000 foot level. We’ve seen the advisor tech stack exploding with all different kinds of applications, whether from CRM to marketing automation. And yet most firms that we’re working with are still struggling with fragmented data and disconnected workflows, fortunately — it just keeps us in business. But from your perspective, with AdvisorEngine’s solution, what’s still fundamentally broken? How are you fixing it around wealth management technology?
Rich: Well, I think I’m going to come up with a new tagline for us, which is to put Craig Iskowitz out of business.
Craig: That will be some kind of tagline.
Rich: The whole joke is if a vendor’s solutions worked half as well as they say they do, we’d be out of business. Oh, Craig, that hurts. So in all seriousness, from the day they founded the company, we’re trying to solve exactly what you’re talking about, which is taking together a lot of fragmented data and fragmented workflows across multiple custodians and data providers. So ultimately, if you think about all the steps of a wealth management lifecycle, connecting all those pieces is super important. So the data coming in, connecting all the features, and then on top of that — and I think this is where we actually started from — it’s super important to connect the three main constituents: the advisors, the business operations, and their clients. Connecting all three of those. And I think the fragmentation has come from a few different places.
Rich: One is that when certain tech stacks were built historically, they were built for advisors, and then it was an afterthought of how to get a client connected to that. Or there was client and investor software that moved into more of the advisor space and it became a secondary thought. Whereas when we started to solve this problem, it was: we’re going to solve for all three of the constituents, all three main roles. And even within that, if you think about business operations, that could mean ten different things to five people. So we think about the COO, the head of operations, the CFO, client service administrators — people who open accounts, change addresses, work with their custodian, do trade rebalancing, manage the business — all those types of roles fit within business operations. We’ve done a ton of work identifying each one of those roles and creating curated experiences for them that they can also share with similar roles in their organization. So it’s a tough problem to solve, which is why, like yourself, you’re in business because there’s a lot to do there.
Rich: So I mentioned data across custodians, data from multiple different providers — market data providers, data aggregation, a whole bunch of custodians, things like that. You bring all of that data together. And then if you think about the core custodians in the RIA space and broker-dealer space, they all have their own set of workflows that you’ve got to connect into via APIs and be really smart about how you do that. Then of course the other layer is the various tools that are out there — planning tools that clients want to use, or other types of tools they want integrated into the overall ecosystem.
Craig: So there’s an endless amount of work to do there, especially when you’ve got a platform like AdvisorEngine, which is both a unified platform and an integrated platform because of all the things you have to integrate. We get this question all the time: should we go best of breed or all-in-one? AdvisorEngine is an all-in-one platform, but firms still ask us, should we get a bunch of point solutions so we can get the best? How do you balance that when you’re working with clients who say they want the best in each area, but they want to see the benefits of having an all-in-one solution?
The Difference Between Real Integration and Just Moving Files
Rich: When you think about that, there’s a middle ground that I think is important. While we’re an all-in-one, we don’t think we should be building every single part. And we think it’s super important to partner with the point solutions that our clients use, or the point solutions that we think really drive the overall experience. So we’re an open architecture platform from a technology and investment standpoint. And when we do an integration, we try to go pretty deep.
Rich: For example, when you think about custodian integrations, as you know, those are not all the same. People say, oh, we’re integrated with XYZ custodian. Well, when we think about integration — I’ll take our Schwab integration — it’s a super deep integration. Alerts come out of Schwab and they will automatically, if you’ve set them up, go into workflows in the system. So you’re taking custodian information, creating workflows, getting to the right person to do their work. It’s all connected. Other ways we connect custodians: with Schwab, we are able to trade with them in all three different ways they work. We can connect into iRebal. We can send trades through FIX. We can send trades into the trade blotter at Schwab.
Rich: And then we also connect workflows. For example, on the client portal, if an advisor wants to enable a client to request cash, or the advisor’s business operations person does that, we will check if there’s cash in the account. If there isn’t, we’ll queue that request, create a raised-cash capability in our trade rebalancing system, look to see when that cash is raised, and then the system will send that cash disbursement into the custodian. That’s how you drive true scale — connecting all those pieces and then connecting into the custodian. From my perspective, and I think people over-claim this, if you don’t have that depth of integration, you’re not a true scalable platform.
Craig: Being the experts on integration here at Ezra Group, I would say you’re absolutely right. There are firms that say they’re connected to Schwab, but all it means is they’ll take their daily files and process them — which is very different. That’s not even really an integration; that’s just processing data.
Rich: Correct.
Craig: What you’re describing is an integration where you can reach into their platform and do things. And especially when it comes to sending trades, the trade blotter at Schwab, connecting to workflows — the request cash process can take multiple steps and it’s very difficult to track if you aren’t monitoring it across all aspects of the business. So there’s certainly a huge difference there.
Rich: To highlight that — when you talk about cash movement, think of the number of people who have to get involved that no longer need to get involved if you’re using our platform. And the best part is we prevent a NIGO, which is great for the custodian, great for the client experience, and great for the advisor’s firm. The NIGO is the biggest pain in the neck of the industry. You get a NIGO, you’re making phone calls — who’s going to talk to the client, who’s going to talk to the custodian, all those pieces.
Rich: So one of the things we’re very focused on is that when people are using our software for opening accounts, moving money, moving assets, trade rebalancing — all those pieces — things are in good order before it gets to the custodian. We’ve worked tirelessly to build really smart capabilities for all of those. It’s not just a simple workflow, it’s an intelligent workflow, field by field, so that by the time it gets to the custodian, it’s in good order.
Craig: No one tracks that — the reduction in NIGOs from bringing on a new tech platform.
Rich: It’s interesting. I was thinking about that the other day as something to highlight. But what I can give is an anecdote: one of our clients’ COOs talked to one of our team members and said — I’m going to paraphrase it because I was not in the conversation — “One of the things we love about AdvisorEngine is we don’t get NIGOs. We can’t create a NIGO.” That felt amazingly good. That’s the journey we’ve been on, and I think our team is really crushing that right now.
Craig: And you’re ahead of the game because there are a lot of firms coming to us saying they’ve got a great AI solution for onboarding that gets rid of NIGOs. And it’s like, do you really understand how onboarding works? There’s a lot more to it than just throwing AI at it and saying we’ll make this work. You’re talking about a tremendous number of different systems involved, just for one custodian. They’ve got 50 different forms that are changing all the time. And 50 different registrations. Maybe you can get a very simple account opened. But when it comes to all the complexity, you don’t even understand the problem you’re dealing with.
Rich: And you raise a really good point. If you think about custodian forms that change more often than we all love, we get that messaging and we have to react to it — react to changing our rule set, whether it’s editing fields, new rules, whatever it may be. We have to get in front of that so when a new custodian document is out, we have the right document information to map everything through the APIs. It’s constant care. It’s constant care.
Why Building Your Own Software Is Almost Always the Wrong Call
Craig: It’s another thing people don’t understand when it comes to building and selling software. Software has always been getting cheaper to build for the last 20-plus years, constantly getting cheaper. I think 10 years ago I wrote an article for Investor’s Business Daily where they asked, should advisors build their own software? And it was already getting cheap then. And the answer was no, because the cost of building the software is less than 10% of the overall cost it’s going to take to maintain that software going forward. The integrations, the updates, the bug fixing, the support — that’s where all the main cost comes from, not the building.
Craig: With AI, everything’s almost free to build. It’s still not a good idea to build your own software because, again, you don’t want to be in the software business for most things. Some things, yes, if you have interesting tools or technologies that no one else has. But you’re losing the ability — to use AdvisorEngine as an example — your software has best practices from hundreds of other firms that you’re managing and curating for advisors. If I’m building my own, it’s just me. I don’t have access to that.
Rich: 100%. We could probably talk an hour on this topic. But I think it could be seen as subjective in what we do. I’ve been building software both internally and prior to starting AdvisorEngine. You just scratched the surface of what people have to think about. Think of security — it’s a huge deal. We spend a lot of money and time on security. Then you get into data normalization, having the ability to do that across multiple custodians and create a single experience for clients, advisors, and business ops across multiple custodians and other data providers. That’s a lot to maintain.
Rich: It’s not just one custodian or multiple custodians. We talked before about how form changes and transaction code changes impact everything — performance, market values, all sorts of things. So every day we are curing for that. And given your background, you know that even all the tooling you use has to constantly be updated for a host of reasons — because it’s no longer supported, or it’s not being supported for security fixes. We’re updating our firewall sometimes every single day for new threats.
What Hiring a Head of AI Actually Signals
Craig: I want to shift gears. We’re about halfway through our discussion. I want to get to what everyone’s talking about, which is AI. You guys recently announced your first head of artificial intelligence, Tim Foley. Super pumped that he joined the firm. I think it’s a huge win for you guys to get him on board, considering his experience in the industry. But what drove you to do that? Why do you think you need a head of AI? What is he going to be doing for you? And what do you see, broadly, in terms of changes in the value being added inside your core platform with AI?
Rich: Let me take the strategy real quick, and then I’ll dive into Tim and what’s going on at AdvisorEngine. Strategy-wise, we’re going to continue to partner with AI providers. For example, today we’re integrated with Jump, Zeplyn, and Zocks. Our clients are happy with those integrations, and we’re learning from that and getting better and better with those three partners. So we’re going to continue to do that the way we would with other types of point solutions — if they’re AI-native and our clients really want to use them, we will integrate with them.
Rich: We’re also going to build our own. If you think about what we have, we have years and years of data and workflows — many years in our system, thousands and thousands of workflows, and extremely broad data. So we think we can do a ton to help our clients scale their business, grow their business, operate really efficiently, and have much better engagement with their clients and prospects. We’re just touching the surface of things we can do.
Rich: Bringing in Tim — he’s incredibly talented, Tim Foley. He’s been building advisor software for a long time and has been in AI for several years. Connecting somebody who deeply understands an advisor’s practice with AI to solve real-world problems — it’s been great to have him on board. Every meeting is awesome. And it’s also what we’re doing with our team. I’ll give an example: we were talking about the APIs we built for pre-meeting prep — why don’t we put it in our own software? One week later, we had a working prototype. Those are things we can do pretty rapidly to offer some really cool solutions for our clients.
Craig: Speaking of pre-meeting prep, as a full wealth platform, you also have your own CRM, which used to be called Juncture and is now called AdvisorEngine CRM, fully integrated into your overall platform. We’re seeing a number of CRM providers launching AI note-takers. You’re partnering with Jump, Zocks, and Zeplyn, but other firms like Practify or WealthBox are building out their own note-takers. Is your strategy changing? Do you see advisors building a note-taker? You just mentioned pre-meeting prep, so you’re halfway to a note-taker.
Rich: Or do you think you’re going to do both?
Craig: Will you build something and also partner, or stick with your current approach?
Rich: We’ll do both. We’ll continue to partner. We’re not in the business of forcing change. If enough clients love a certain point solution or provider, we’re happy to integrate with them. We’re going to continue that open architecture approach. Every single one of our product teams is working on AI solutions — that’s what we’re doing now and what we’re going to continue to do.
Rich: Craig, if you look at the wealth platform space over the past five to ten years, there used to be portfolio management over here, or subsets like trade rebalancing, fee billing, point solutions, CRM. And then the portfolio management software came together, which naturally makes sense — you should have the same data set for your trade rebalancing, fee billing, and performance reporting. Then what happened? We buy Juncture, Orion buys Redtail, SS&C buys another CRM provider. So all the platforms have a CRM component. Why? From our perspective, you shouldn’t have to use the word CRM in the future. And when you think about AI, it’s the same thing. Whether it’s a year from now, two years, three years — it’s table stakes for every wealth platform. And I think it’s going to happen in one of two ways: partnership and build your own. The partnership would take a lot of different forms. But that’s where this is all going.
Rich: I don’t think there’s a world where you’re going to say, I have a portfolio management system that doesn’t have AI, or a wealth tech system that doesn’t have any organic AI and has to rely on a third party for all AI solutions. That doesn’t feel like a realistic future. All of our developers are going to be using AI to develop our software, and we’re going to be delivering AI solutions that transform the entire experience and make the advisor’s experience, the whole practice, way more efficient than it is today. Our software is already efficient today. It will go to the next level.
Craig: It’s exciting to hear. It’s exciting to think about how much more efficient things can get because it’s already improving tremendously in so many areas. So with all the work you guys are doing in AI, what we’re seeing is all these new startups and AI firms moving into everyone else’s category, thinking it’s easy to build. We’ll just build financial planning. We’ll just build rebalancing. We’ll just build all this stuff. But that’s not the best approach for some firms. If you’re looking at running your business on a platform where every dollar has to be accounted for and every regulator is going to be looking down your throat, do you think some firms might be fooled into jumping onto some of these platforms a little too early?
Rich: That’s certainly possible. And you’ve been in the middle of this — thinking about: what is the security of the data? You jump into AI. And I think even in the past year, advisors have become more aware of the fact that the data isn’t just on their phone — it’s somewhere in the cloud and it’s possibly training some model. That messaging has gotten out there and people are starting to understand that. So when I think about it, we chose the partners we chose, and they had no data-training of our clients’ data in any agreements. We did research on them — these are the three best providers from our perspective. We also looked at how well they’re funded, things like that.
Rich: Of course, we can’t predict the future. We’re not going to be perfect here, and no one’s going to be perfect. But you have to think about how they’re playing the ecosystem, how they’re funded, whether there’s a track record from the founders. I double down on AI and then go off the security around your data. We take it seriously. But again, we’re going to partner and we’re going to build. We’re already building.
The Client Portal as a Working Tool, Not a Dashboard
Craig: Indeed. I applaud that strategy. We’re running out of time. I want to hit a couple more questions. You recently launched a new version of your client portal. And this is an area of the business that I think doesn’t get enough attention and that doesn’t have enough consolidation — there are too many client portals. Every RIA has got a couple at least: the custodian, maybe their CRM, their financial planning tool, maybe another one. Having a strong client portal is an underrated part of an advisor’s business. So in your architecture, how tightly is the portal integrated? And do you see it becoming more of a part of the advisor-client workflow rather than just a dashboard?
Rich: We believe strongly it should be part of the advisor workflow. And this is one of the things we’re working on with AI. If you take a step back, a lot of the talk around AI is about helping a firm become more operationally efficient — and that’s 100% valid, there’s a ton of use cases in that category. But the other areas to think about are revenue growth and client experience.
Rich: From a revenue growth perspective, there are two things: either you’re going to do more with your existing clients — you have the tip of the iceberg, so how do you get the rest of the assets — or it’s going to be a new client coming in the door. We think the operational efficiencies that AI will drive should free up capital for advisors to deploy into marketing resources. It’s really important that advisors pivot or add to — not just relying on referrals, but adding on their marketing capabilities. That’s the growth side. On the client engagement side, AI can do a ton there too.
Rich: Think of a world like this: an advisor meets with a client. What happens today with AI note-takers — they’re very good. They create a summary, here are the notes, here are tasks. The tasks get connected into a CRM, and that’s where the work gets done. But think of the world where you extend it to the client portal. Now in the client portal, the client can see: hey, I owe this to the advisor — I need to give them my trust document, my tax return, whatever it is. Or I said I was going to open up an account — I need to do that through the client portal. The advisor is supposed to do X, Y, and Z. And the client can see it — oh, I’m doing my homework, he or she’s doing their homework. Now the client, instead of feeling like they’re only touched at a quarterly or semi-annual meeting, is seeing the advisor doing work for them and being engaged with them throughout the year. They can see the work that’s happening. That’s where we’re going with it — to really help advisors deliver their value in a very engaging way.
Craig: All right, last question, Rich. The rest of the year — what can we expect? Anything you can pre-announce that AdvisorEngine clients can look forward to before the end of the year?
Rich: Well, you just snuck that one in.
Craig: A lot more. A lot more.
Rich: Thematically, let me take a step back. We did just launch and announce AdvisorEngine Portfolio Solutions, our TAMP. And what’s really cool about that is the TAMP services use the same technology that an advisor can use in their practice. So, for example, an advisor can have a set of clients and assets they are trading and managing themselves, and another set of assets where they’re using AdvisorEngine Portfolio Solutions to do their trading, investment framework, and things like that. And the neat thing about it — you can switch between the two seamlessly. It’s one experience for the advisor, their team, and ultimately the client. So I’m going to continue to invest in those areas, including trade rebalancing capabilities. We don’t have household rebalancing today, but we plan to have that by year end. I’ll announce that here — that’s in the works.
Rich: We’re also going to continue to build out our overall reporting framework. Craig and I talked about this probably at T3. We’re really proud of our reporting framework built on a data lake. When you ask whether advisors should be doing things themselves — we already have a data lake for advisors to use, and it’s incredible. It’ll be fast. As an example, with one of our competitors, if you want to run a report, it feels like I was in Bear Stearns in 2005 — you schedule a report and you get a PDF at some point in the future. Maybe it’s good for your health to go work out while you wait and come back. In our case, it’s live, it’s sub-second, it’s all sorts of data that you can then share. You can PDF it if you like, customize the PDF, create a report for your client. But the point is it’s incredibly fast across a ton of data points, and it’s live for you to work with. We’re going to continue to do more and more in that area where, at our core, it’s the client data — we want to give clients all the access to it in the way they want to access it.
Craig: That’s what we want — to meet clients where they are.
Rich: Yes, we do.
Craig: You’ve said it all. We’re out of time. How can people find more information about AdvisorEngine?
Rich: AdvisorEngine.com. And on AdvisorEngine.com, if you’d like to learn more about our TAMP, the investment management tab is on there.
Craig: Excellent, Richard. Thanks for being here, man. Go birds.
Rich: Here we go, Steelers. Take it easy, man.
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