The most successful financial advisors and wealth management firms going forward won't be the biggest or the flashiest. They'll be the firms that most skillfully blend human advice with data discipline and artificial intelligence — and also have right operating structures to scale this powerful combination, according to Dynasty Financial Partners CEO Shirl Penney and Orion CEO Natalie Wolfsen.
Technology is changing so fast," Wolfsen said during a panel discussion held in December in New York as part of ThinkAdvisor's Luminaries awards gala. "Not picking up the tools, like AI and data tools, means that the services you provide will be of a lower quality very quickly."
While Penney acknowledged that the role of the human advisor is "not going anywhere," he stressed that the advisory firms "best at tech enablement will differentiate on the service side and ultimately drive the widest margins."
Though we're in "the very early innings of the AI supercycle," Penney said, the disruption could most greatly affect jobs in the middle and back office.
Wolfsen added that adoption pace in an "exponential" change cycle will influence competitive outcomes, making disciplined execution a near-term differentiator.
Both Penney and Wolfsen were named CEO of the Year in their respective industry segments as part of ThinkAdvisor's 2025 Luminaries awards gala. They spoke on stage during a panel discussion led by Rudin Group CEO April Rudin, who recently co-authored the book "Wealth Management With a Difference: Your Guide to Achieving Client, Generational, and Business Success," with Nick Rice of the Brunswick Group.
In addition to highlighting a host of different trends and industry issues, both executives also offered the following steps for advisory firms to take in 2026 and beyond to set themselves up for success.
1. Embrace today's opportunities.
Industry momentum favors the RIA channel, Penney said. "As I kind of move around the industry, whether it's custodians or new entrants in the custodian space like Goldman Sachs or some of the largest asset managers in the world — traditional or alternative — they're all laser focused right now on what's going on in the RIA space."
Roughly $250 billion a year is migrating from the banks and brokerage firms into RIAs, he added. That's "leading to a lot more innovation, because the investment dollars follow where the client assets are."
The bottom line, Penney stressed, is that there's "never been a better time to be in this industry than right now."
With a lot of money in motion and convergence happening quickly, Wolfsen said, firms need to put "time into our business and … take advantage of all these tailwinds that are behind us and the tools that are now available to us." When it comes to embracing opportunity, "doing nothing is a decision, too."
2. Expand the advisor recruiting pipeline.
At the same time, the advice business also has a growing supply-demand imbalance in terms of financial advisors. "When we started Dynasty [in 2010], there were a little over 600,000 advisors," Penney said. "Today there's less than 300,000." Technology will help fill the gap, but the industry must do a "better job" of expanding its recruiting pipeline, he said.
Wolfsen characterized the talent shortfall as partly a "marketing problem," noting the profession's impact and financial potential but also its low visibility. "It's a tragedy that the folks who could be entering the industry just don't know how to do so."
She also underscored the urgency of hiring people who are eager to learn: "When disruptive technology is coming in, that's the time that people win, … [and] this is a time of exponential change."
3. Set up clear data strategies, policies and protection.
Penney urged firms to start with fundamentals: "Who owns my data? And what is your data strategy? In the AI era, it's garbage in, garbage out."
Dynasty advisors "digitally onboard all their data into our data lake," he said. "We are grabbing it [and] putting it into the system. It then repopulates in financial planning apps, proposal apps, billing and everything else to make this more seamless. And then we [put] some AI on top of it."
Wolfsen emphasized the need for advisors and firms to know what rights their vendors have to their data. Clients "really care about how their information is used and how it is shared," she said.
4. Integrate your tech stack to reduce friction.
Many firms are choosing integration over scattered solutions, even if some components aren't "best in class," Penney said.
Faced with "B-level capability … with relatively seamless integration versus A-level capability with no integration," he said, advisors often pick the integrated path because it simplifies delivery and scales personalization.
The goal remains "A-level capability with seamless integration," but clean, connected workflows save time and reduce errors now, Penney explained.
Wolfsen added that tackling tough technology tasks, like integration, need not be an all-consuming endeavor. "Advisors don't have to create, cobble together and be their own CTO," she said. "Use the tools others provide and spend time building relationships."
5. Prepare for tough, convergence-driven competition.
"Business models used to be very distinct," Wolfsen said. "Now custodians are custodians, technology providers, asset managers, banking providers, lenders."
Advisory firms increasingly compete with platforms that combine custody, planning, trading, banking and communications.
"And now we're a technology wealth ecosystem at Orion," she said. "And the reason for that is investors want it all in one place."
For Penney, mastering distribution is a critical competitive advantage: "We used to say the product is king, but I would argue that today's distribution is King Kong."
Overall, according to Wolfsen, industry competition is going to become much more intense. That's because "with AI … individuals get so much more productive, so smaller firms are going to get a lot more competitive," she said.
6. Align services with demographic reality.
The intergenerational wealth transfer is unfolding more slowly than forecast, Wolfsen said, as many older clients support adult children and parents longer than expected.
She highlighted the growing role of women as primary clients, influenced by longevity and entrepreneurship trends.
Penney pointed to opportunities at the intersection of health and wealth, including guidance that connects longevity planning and health care navigation with financial plans. Wealth often confers "access to world-class health care," he said.
7. Treat succession as a core business risk.
Penney noted that many owners delay their own planning despite meaningful enterprise value. He cited a firm with roughly $5 million in revenue, 35% margins and a double-digit multiple for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
"They've spent no time thinking about succession," he said.
Penney's recommends that wealth firms establish buy-sell protection, identify next-generation leadership, and plan transactions.
Wolfsen added that retirement "isn't an on/off switch" — many advisors prefer a phased glidepath that narrows client books while preserving income.
With assistance from Edisource.
Pictured, from left: Shirl Penney, Natalie Wolfsen and April Rudin. Courtesy photos.
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