“The market is moving from seeing AI as a productivity booster to seeing it as a fee-killer,” said Sarah Miller, a senior fintech analyst. “If a $60-a-month AI tool can do the planning that used to justify a 1% AUM fee, the math for traditional firms ceases to function.” (https://cpatrendlines.com/2026/02/10/ai-tax-app-crashes-financial-stocks-on-wall-street/?srsltid=AfmBOoox3gtk2rF_moKt8w6LjRHn9f5KJJ7-K4FQrPNFJTxC1odrJU9q)
Read that again carefully.
This is not an attack on advisors. This is an attack on a dominant and largely unexamined business model.
AI is not the threat. The exposure of weak value is the threat.
For decades, the AUM model worked because planning knowledge was scarce. Portfolio construction was complex. Software was expensive. Access to information was limited. Advisors controlled the math, and that scarcity justified the fee.
Today the math is cheap. Modeling is cheap. Allocation logic is cheap. Optimization is cheap.
When scarcity disappears, pricing power eventually follows. Advisors are not becoming obsolete, but undifferentiated advisors are becoming exposed.
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