This month, the Financial Advisor FinTech Solutions Map compiled by Michael Kitces and Craig Iskowitz turns 8 years old. In that time, it has evolved from a clean view of the wealthtech landscape into what many in the industry call an “eye chart”—a reflection of just how much innovation has happened across categories and providers. But the next version of that map may look fundamentally different. Not because of new entrants but because of what’s about to change in how all these tools work together.
Financial advisors have spent years building out their tech stacks—layer by layer, category by category. Incredible tools were built. Entire categories were created from scratch. A lot of what seemed cutting edge five years ago is now table stakes in an advisor’s tech stack. Many of those tools are meaningfully integrated into core platforms today. But that connectivity has had a ceiling. Tools talk to each other and data moves between systems, but the depth of integration we’re about to see is a different level entirely. And if the last 12 months tell us anything, months are the new years. What feels like a distant possibility in January is table stakes by the fourth quarter.
Advisors have made real investments in their tech stacks, and the opportunity at hand is making sure those investments compound rather than sit in silos. Every great tool a firm has adopted represents real capability. The missing piece hasn’t been the tools themselves; it’s been the ability to consume them through a single platform. One place where data, AI, and workflows actually operate together rather than requiring constant context switching.
That’s the shift happening now. The real unlock is the convergence of your tools, your data, and your AI platform into something that works together in your daily workflow. The firms winning won’t necessarily be the ones with the most technology. They’ll be the ones whose technology is the most interconnected, where AI operates across the full stack rather than in isolated pockets.
We’re seeing proof of demand for this firsthand. Adoption of connected AI tools in our own platform has been overwhelming. The ability to inject AdvizorPro data and intelligence in Claude and other AI agents where it can be connected with other tools like advisors’ calendars and emails has been adopted quickly. Advisors and distribution teams don’t want another tab; they want their intelligence where they already work.
The early movers at scale are showing what this looks like in practice. Carson Group recently unveiled Client Intelligence—a one-stop conversational AI query tool for advisors that pulls data from across proprietary and connected vendor wealth platforms with a single prompt. Carson’s Chief Strategy Officer Dani Fava described the focus as “embedding intelligence directly into the workflows advisors use every day in ways that immediately expand advisor capacity.” That’s the vision. And Carson isn’t alone—Orion, Nitrogen, and others are building toward the same thing.
This capability isn’t going to stay at the enterprise level for long. Right now it takes a firm with Carson’s budget, engineering team, and years of data cleanup work to pull this off. But the tools making this democratization possible, including Model Context Protocols which provide the connective playbooks that tell AI where to find data, how to use it, and which tools to engage, are going to bring this to mid-size and smaller firms faster than most people expect. AdvizorPro built on this capability in December, a month after Anthropic released it. The firms paying attention to where this is going will have a real head start.
The question worth asking today isn’t “what AI tools should I be using?” It’s “what goes into my chosen AI platform, and how well does it all work together?” The intelligence that feeds your AI determines how useful it actually is. When it comes to advisor data, CRM context, market signals and client information the quality and connectivity of what flows into an advisor’s platform matters more than ever in a world where AI isn’t just reporting but acting on it.
The next iteration of the fintech map will reflect all of this. Expect new connective tissue, deeper integrations, and a clearer picture of which tools are built to plug in and which ones aren’t yet. The wealthtech providers leaning into that connectivity will be the ones that define the next chapter. The eye chart isn’t going away, but the way we read it is about to change.
