Why Financial Advisors Are More Essential Than Ever in the Age of Fintech

As artificial intelligence and financial technology tools evolve at breakneck speed, some in the industry are asking: will AI replace human advisors?

In this exclusive interview with Advisor Perspectives, founding partner John Alexander answers with a resounding “no,” and shares why now is a breakthrough moment for financial advisors — not a breaking point. From automating tax strategies to simplifying estate planning, AI is enhancing — not erasing — the human element in wealth management. The result? A future that blends the precision of technology with the trust, empathy, and strategic thinking only people can deliver.

Key points

• AI is freeing up advisors to focus on what matters most — building trusted relationships and guiding clients through major life events.
• Automation is enhancing the client experience, from on-demand reporting and customized planning to streamlined estate document generation.
• Direct indexing and daily tax-loss harvesting are becoming more accessible, democratizing strategies once limited to ultra-high-net-worth clients.
• Fintech tools like Holistiplan and Vanilla are helping advisors deliver more integrated advice across tax, investment, and estate planning domains.
• Clients, especially younger generations, value human connection more than ever — 83% of millennials and 80% of Gen Zers say advisors are essential for financial planning.¹
• The fear of AI replacing advisors is overblown — investing is emotional, and human insight and guidance remains irreplaceable.

Questions & answers

1. How is artificial intelligence reshaping the day-to-day work of financial advisors? 

It’s making them much more efficient and enhancing the value that they can add to clients. I think some people make the mistake of thinking that AI will replace the value that advisors offer — I actually think the opposite. Technology, and AI in particular, is going to free up advisors to focus on the critical parts of their relationships with clients. Investors of all ages need advisors to help them plan for major life events. Truste advisory relationships help provide retail investors with the confidence they need to stick to the plans they create even when economic conditions become challenging and markets get choppy.

2. What tasks are being automated or enhanced, and how is this changing the advisor-client relationship? 

We are seeing technology improve the client experience across a range of fronts — from the client’s ability to access information about their accounts to customized reporting and AI-generated estate planning support. The whole wealth management process is becoming digital-first — but not digital-only. That is a critical distinction. Clients can do a lot of things on their own if they want to and can benefit from on-demand services — but the majority of investors across all generations find value in one-to-one interaction with their advisors. In fact, studies show that younger investors are also gravitating toward in-person advice with 78% of investors of all ages (from 18 to 40-plus) saying they would pay a premium for in-person interaction.²

3. How are new fintech tools improving areas like tax-loss harvesting and year-end tax planning? Are these capabilities becoming more personalized or more widely accessible?

Technology is democratizing high-quality investment advice and making it possible for investors to more universally access direct indexing and continuous tax-loss harvesting. With advances in technology, tax-loss harvesting is now cross-asset class and performed ongoingly to help maximize the excess return generated through tax deferrals. Direct indexing can allow investments to be much more tailored to individuals — and is now available to investors regardless of whether they fall within the high-net-worth or ultra-high-net-worth segments. Minimums for direct indexing strategies can be as low as $100,000, and these investment strategies can be tailored to fit an investor’s needs more precisely, including ESG tilts where desired.

4. In what ways is technology making estate planning and document management more streamlined or secure for advisors and their clients? 

AI is changing the game in the estate planning space. New fintech providers, such as Vanilla, are making it easier and less expensive to create and document estate plans. For more complicated estates, a specialized attorney is still required, but more routine documents, such as powers of attorney, can simply be generated through AI and reviewed by an attorney behind the scenes.

5. How has the adoption of AI-driven platforms raised the bar for clients’ expectations in terms of speed, accuracy, and customization? 

I think clients assume that most of their questions can be addressed quickly. For more mundane queries, they likely expect an instantaneous response. As for accuracy, I think that most investors understand that AI has some limitations. Therefore, they expect that their advisors will utilize AI applications and also engage in quality control to help ensure that output is not only speedy, but accurate.

6. What risks or limitations do you see with the increasing reliance on AI in financial services?

Are there areas where a human touch remains irreplaceable? Absolutely. We can readily find examples in our lives. Several months ago, my wife asked me to chauffeur my daughter to a friend’s house and sent me the address through text. Never having been there, I simply put the address in Google maps and expected to be routed there efficiently. Turns out, the GPS sent us around in circles given some oddities in the street numbering that it couldn’t have predicted. I ended up being in the car longer than expected and was late for a call. It wasn’t a great experience, but it also wasn’t catastrophic. When we are talking about financial advice, the stakes go up. If you blindly trust an online application that does not know you on a personal level or understand what you are trying to achieve in your life, then you might end up at the wrong destination after 20 to 30 years of investing — and that certainly could be disastrous.

7. Looking ahead, which innovations are you most excited about? Whether it’s predictive analytics, digital estate vaults, or AI-generated reporting, what’s on your radar as a potential game-changer for advisors? 

I’m most excited about advisors having the opportunity to showcase how value-added they can be. All of the things mentioned here, from digital vaults to customized reporting, can be employed to help enhance the client experience.

It’s also important not to lose sight of the community building and education that advisors can now do through social media. This is another benefit of innovation. About half of all millennials — the generation that is slated to become the wealthiest in history — report using social media as a source for information about financial markets (while the majority also indicate that their advisor is the primary source they tap).³ I think the merging of the two is now possible in a way that maybe it wasn’t in the past. Advisors can use social channels to promote best practices among their clients and connect pods of similar clients together in dynamic chats to mutually reinforce good financial habits. They can also share their views on markets more readily and provide calming guidance in times of increased market volatility.

8. What tools is &Partners using in your practice?  

Because we had the chance to build our tech stack from the ground up and are very advisor-centric in our approach, we have integrated a large number of tools into the way in which our advisors do business. Two that I think are really differentiated include Vanilla, which I described earlier, and Holistiplan.

Holistiplan is an application that allows an advisor to glean insights after scanning in a client’s prior tax returns. It’s really unique in that it fosters a proactive dialogue between a client’s advisor and CPA around tax deferral or even tax avoidance. It is incredibly easy to use and showcases the way in which the best advisors today will be involved in almost every aspect of a client’s financial life. The artificial boundaries between tax, investments, and estate planning are going away — and that is a great thing for clients, who will now enjoy better integrated, more effective structures and advice across all three.

9. Some industry observers say AI could replace 80% of what advisors do today. Do you agree or disagree? 

For 80% of the non-value-added things — absolutely yes. And I think that is great. Advisors should not fear AI; they should embrace it. The best advisors will be digitally native in their approach to the work product, but highly personal in their interactions with clients. Nothing can take the place of trusted conversations. Every study I see is reinforcing how much clients value the dialogue they have with their financial advisors. In fact, younger generations are more likely than older ones to say that online or AI-generated advice is insufficient. Moreover, 83% and 80% of millennials and Gen Zers, respectively, believe that a financial advisor is a critical part of planning for life goals.⁴

 10. There’s a lot of hype around AI. What’s real and what’s just buzz? 

I think the potential productivity gains are very real — but the fear that AI will replace advisors is hype. Investing is emotional because money is emotional. When I speak to advisors, they are very passionate about what they do — and that passion stems from the fact that high-quality planning and investing actually does change lives for the better. Early planning and investing reduce financial anxiety and can even have a beneficial impact on physical health. I think it is fascinating that in some ways, younger investors seem to really appreciate these benefits and are embracing their financial advisor more than prior generations. Millennials, who speak with their financial advisors on average every 2 to 3 months, are engaging much more frequently than boomers did.⁵ And DIY investors in this age category are converting to advised at an impressively fast clip — in fact, a recent survey by Northwest Mutual showed that over a quarter of Gen Zers and millennials who previously relied on online tools had sought out an advisor within the past year.⁶

11. If you were building a next-gen advisory firm from scratch today, what’s the one fintech capability you wouldn’t go without? 

That’s a really hard question because I think the value comes in sourcing a number of different specialized technologies and knitting them together through APIs. But if I had to choose just one, I guess I would focus on direct indexing with continuous tax loss harvesting, because one of my first loves has always been investing. I think the fact that we can now create customized, tax-aware strategies for investors across the wealth spectrum is just amazing. I think it’s also important to underscore that these strategies, when integrated into a financial plan, represent the promise of AI + FA — more tailored investing, holistic advice, and on-demand servicing without sacrificing value-added, in-person discussions. It’s human plus machine at its finest.

[1] Dow Jones, “Majority of Millennial Investors Value Advisors.”
[2] Simon Kucher & Partners, “Wealth Management for the Younger Generation: Hybrid Advice Unlocks Value.”
[3] Dow Jones, “Millennial Investors.”
[4] Dow Jones, “Millennial Investors.”
[5] Professional Advisor, “Millennials Speak to Advisers More Than Any Other Generation.”
[6] Rethinking65, “Young Americans Are Seeking Financial Advice Earlier Than Their Parents, Financial Planning Articles for Financial Advisors & Wealth Managers.”