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
- Evidence45
- Adoption35
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives70
- Confidence50
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
- Evidence45
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives70
- Confidence50
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
- Evidence52
- Adoption34
- Hype gap+32
- Incentives68
- Confidence45
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
- Evidence32
- Adoption45
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives68
- Confidence62
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.
Reality
- Evidence44
- Adoption26
- Hype gap+34
- Incentives76
- Confidence46
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.
Reality
- Evidence46
- Adoption62
- Hype gap+27
- Incentives74
- Confidence54
A vendor survey says millennials are the most active donors right now. It also explains why the organisations sitting on boomer money are stuck.
Reality
- Evidence30
- Adoption18
- Hype gap+40
- Incentives80
- Confidence48
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
- Evidence34
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+24
- Incentives72
- Confidence41