I spent more than a decade working as a financial advisor. I wore the suit, I sat across the desk from clients and I explained why they needed me to manage their wealth.
Back then, the value proposition was straightforward. You didn’t have the tools I had. You couldn’t easily buy the funds I could buy. You needed a gatekeeper, and I was it. In exchange for that access and my time, charging 1% of your assets every year felt like a fair trade.
But looking at the landscape today, the game has completely changed. If I were still sitting on that side of the desk in 2026, I wouldn’t just be nervous. I’d be looking for a life raft.
The gatekeeper model is dead. And frankly, the tools available to you right now for pennies on the dollar are better than what I used to charge a premium for.
Here are three reasons why the industry — and the robo-advisors trying to disrupt it — are facing an existential crisis.
1. The math no longer adds up
The bread and butter of the advisory business has always been the assets under management (AUM) fee. The industry standard is usually around 1%.
When I was an advisor, clients rarely balked at this — 1% sounds tiny. But when you do the math over a lifetime, it’s astronomical.
If you have $500,000 in retirement savings, that 1% fee costs you $5,000 in year one alone. Over 20 years, assuming a 7% return, that little fee could eat up more than $160,000 of your potential growth.
In my day, you paid that because you had to. Today? You absolutely don’t.
Platforms driven by artificial intelligence can now build you a diversified, risk-adjusted portfolio for 0.25% or less. Some do it for free.
When a computer can replicate the asset allocation I used to build by hand — and do it for a fraction of the price — paying a 300% markup for a human stock-picker is hard to justify.
2. Robots are better at the grunt work
A huge part of my job was monitoring portfolios. I had to watch for drift (when your stocks grow too fast and throw off your risk balance) and look for tax-loss harvesting opportunities.
I was good at it, but I was human. I slept. I went on vacation. I had other clients.
AI doesn’t sleep. Here’s how it can help as it monitors your portfolio 24/7:
- Rebalancing: If your tech stocks jump 5% on a Tuesday morning, AI can rebalance you instantly. I might not have gotten around to it until your quarterly review.
- Tax efficiency: If a stock dips, the algorithm can harvest that loss immediately to lower your tax bill.
In terms of pure mechanical efficiency, the machine beats the human every time. It’s like trying to do complex calculus in your head while a computer does it in a nanosecond.
3. Personal AI is coming for the middleman
This is the part that would really keep me up at night if I were still in the business.
We often talk about AI replacing humans, but the next victim is more likely to be the “robo-advisor” apps. These apps disrupted guys like me by automating the process, but they still treat you like a statistic. They dump you into a bucket based on a generic quiz.
We are rapidly moving toward a world where your personal AI assistant — the one already on your phone — can do this without the middleman app.
Imagine telling your phone: “Check my bank account, analyze my spending and tell me if I can afford that trip to Italy.”
If your personal AI can analyze your real-time financial life and adjust your portfolio automatically, why pay a separate app a fee?
When financial planning becomes a utility built into your phone’s operating system, the entire concept of a financial management fee might disappear.
Why I wouldn’t be fired (yet)
So, if I were still an advisor, would I just quit?
No. But I would drastically change my pitch.
While I’d be terrified if my value came from picking stocks, I wouldn’t be worried if I were a true financial planner. AI is brilliant at math, but it’s terrible at empathy. And it has a dangerous habit of hallucinating — confidently stating facts that are completely wrong.
Vanguard calls this “advisor’s alpha.” The real value isn’t beating the market; it’s behavioral coaching.
Here is what I did for clients that a robot still can’t do:
- I talked them off the ledge when the market crashed and they wanted to sell everything at the bottom.
- I mediated between spouses who had completely different views on money.
- I helped them navigate complex emotional decisions, like how to leave money to a child with addiction issues.
The bottom line
If I were still a financial advisor today, I would stop pretending I could pick stocks better than a computer. I would stop charging 1% for asset management.
Instead, I would become a wealth coach. I would use the AI to handle the math, the taxes and the rebalancing, and I would focus 100% of my energy on the one thing the machine can’t do: understanding your life.
If your current advisor is just moving money around, they are obsolete. But if they are helping you stick to your plan during volatility, they are worth every penny.
