Breakaway Brokers

Registered investment advisors (RIAs) are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) tools that automatically transcribe and summarize client calls. While these technologies may offer efficiency gains, they introduce significant legal and compliance risks. This article discusses the intersection of AI transcription tools with state wiretapping laws, privacy considerations, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements, and the evolving litigation landscape.

The global luxury industry, which has been grappling with three years of lackluster sales, may gain some relief as wealth generated by artificial-intelligence companies and their trillions of dollars of initial public offerings finds its way into fancy fripperies.

When clients, specifically, feel they matter to their advisor, they engage more deeply in the planning process, follow through on recommendations, refer more frequently, and build lasting relationships that transcend market volatility.

to come

Wealth management firms are aware of the looming retirement wave and have put real effort into mitigating it through recruiting, training, succession planning, and technology to modernize the advisor workflow. But what’s truly at risk of being lost is the judgment that senior advisors have accumulated over decades

President Xi Jinping used the rise of China’s AI models to stake his claim on shaping the technology’s global rules, even as their growing power stirs security concerns in Washington and Beijing alike.

Apple Inc. is again the biggest company in the world after wresting the title from Nvidia Corp., which has held it since May 2025.

The labor gap is creating pressure on firms to do more with their existing teams, and AI is giving those teams the tools to actually do it. Here is how firms achieve double-digit growth using AI, even while navigating a workforce transformation they cannot fully control.

For this week’s column, in the wake of the holiday celebrating our country’s independence, I’ll share some independent thinking for advisors to implement, whether it be with their teams, in their practice or with their clients. I’ll keep it brief in the hopes you will find one or two things that resonate.

The Federal Aviation Administration is resurrecting the dream of passengers flying faster than the speed of sound after it recently proposed lifting a ban on supersonic flights over land, which has been in place for more than five decades.

Widowhood does not happen on paper. It happens in the middle of grief, changing income, tax questions, family expectations, housing decisions, administrative demands, and a profound shift in identity. The math may still work, but the human operating system has changed. And that is why advisors need to stress test — not only for portfolio survival, but for survivor usability.

After years of working with advisors and studying client behavior, the reasons clients leave come down to three core patterns. They are predictable. They are preventable. And they almost always trace back to a conversation that never happened in the first meeting.

I have spent the better part of my career watching how organizations manage access to sensitive data — who has it, who should have it, and how long it takes anyone to notice when those two things stop matching. In financial services, that gap tends to be measured in months.

The US industrial robot industry is characterized by low growth and highly customized projects. Artificial intelligence holds out the hope to change that, especially when it comes to robots that can move and work safely around humans.

With the artificial intelligence race moving so rapidly, even a momentary lag can be costly. Alphabet Inc.’s Google is learning this the hard way: The search giant rapidly caught up with

The firms that operate rigorous vendor evaluation will compound two advantages simultaneously: They buy the right tools now, and their advisors trust them when the next generation of AI arrives. In a decade that will be defined by the industry's capacity to do more with fewer people, that trust is a strategic asset.

Acquiring a book of business is one of the fastest ways an independent advisor can grow AUM, expand a client base, and build long-term enterprise value. It is also one of the most financially consequential decisions you will ever make — and most advisors approach it underprepared.

Meta Platforms Inc. is developing plans for a cloud infrastructure business that will sell access to AI computing power and models, setting up a new vector of competition with industry leaders like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

If your heart and mind tell you to go looking for someone older because that’s going to fit your culture more effectively, by all means search in that direction. Just don’t give up on younger, next-generation team members without making sure you have given them every opportunity to succeed.

European firms in critical sectors like nuclear energy and quantum computing are flocking to the US, despite efforts by European authorities and bourses to make the region’s markets more appealing and accessible.

That gap — between believing you are excellent and being able to prove it — is the central problem this article addresses. And solving it is precisely what “The 80/20 Manifesto” was written to do.

I have run sales teams, developed sales teams, trained salespeople and trained advisors for many years. Education is your best bet, but if people are focused on growth at all costs, sometimes they aren’t in a position to really listen.

Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman proclaimed a wizard for guiding a then-record US economic expansion, only to see his luster dimmed by the financial crisis that erupted less than two years after he stepped down, has died. He was 100.

I was asked by an advisory firm to speak to their clients at their recent client event. I was able to share the “Five Secrets of Human Behavior,” and all attendees received my similarly named book. In today’s column, I’ll outline these secrets and share why they matter from a leadership perspective.

Compliance risks happen when AI-enabled workflows expand faster than their governance model. It becomes a blind spot when AI solutions are built faster than the organization’s ability to map them against the right regulatory, operational, and data-governance controls.

SpaceX shares jumped on Tuesday, putting the firm on track to overtake Amazon.com Inc. as the fifth largest publicly traded company in the world just days after its blockbuster debut.

Most couples who argue about money are arguing from different money scripts – the deeply held beliefs about money that each partner formed long before the relationship began. Uncovering and understanding those scripts, individually and together, may be one of the more useful things a couple can do.

Things change fast in artificial intelligence. One minute corporate desk jockeys are competing to use AI coding and reasoning tools as much as possible, the next their bosses are complaining about budgets being pulverized and start rationing usage.

The jury is still out on whether SpaceX is primarily a rocket company, as its name suggests, or actually more of a telecom provider or artificial intelligence play. Its expected valuation doesn’t help resolve the confusion.

The initial public offering for SpaceX is poised to generate billions of dollars in profits for the fortunate few investors who got in early on Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company.

The biggest problem I find is that advisors don’t have the time they need to focus on growth. Sending out a mass invite via LinkedIn is fast and easy, but it doesn’t mean it is the most effective action you can take.

With a new boss at the helm and expectations of billions in surplus gas revenue, the Qatar Investment Authority spent the past year telegraphing a step-up in dealmaking. Iran’s attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure and Doha’s inability to ship products risk hampering that push.

It’s so hard in our industry to “benchmark” things like comp, benefits and work-from-home philosophies, because if you show me 15 teams or firms, I’ll show you 15 different ways to answer these questions. I know the WFH question is a big one, and many teams are struggling with it.

As billions of dollars leave Bitcoin and Ether funds, money is flowing into a corner of crypto that promises something investors have long struggled to find in digital assets: a clearer path from economic activity to token value.

Goldman Sachs announced a partnership with Anthropic in early May, though you probably shouldn’t view it as just a cool innovation story. It is infrastructure in motion. When institutions like Goldman move, pay attention to what problem they believe they are solving.

Advisory firms need tighter integration between their daily work tools and the CRM at the center of their world. When notes sit siloed from the rest of a firm's data and operations, the chance to deepen team collaboration and sharpen client insights goes with them.

Leading with bad news can feel wrong and even confrontational at some level, but the psychology research supports it, the behavioral finance supports it, the career math supports it, and the clients who stay through multiple cycles apply the final confirmation stamp.

Some people do much better with change than others. It isn’t that they can’t change or they actively resist it. Rather, they experience more fear, more concern and they need more clarity about what the change means to them.

As more individuals turn to non-traditional financial advice — offered through social media, artificial intelligence, or other online services and platforms — advisors will be tasked with fostering a greater sense of trust with the public.

Elon Musk has bucked the trend of industrial conglomerate breakups, including such illustrious companies as General Electric and Honeywell International Inc., and decided to form a somewhat unwieldy company that makes rockets, spacecraft, satellites, antennas, modems and now computer chips. With SpaceX’s purchase of Musk’s xAI in February, the world’s leading space company was married to an AI startup and the X social media platform.

Space has evolved from a niche corner of the stock market into an area that offers the potential for diversity and growth. The euphoria around SpaceX’s market entry is driving fresh investor flows into the sector. Since the news of the offering first became public in early December, smaller space and related stocks have soared.

The percentage-of-assets fee is so embedded in advisory economics that most firms treat it as a fixed constant rather than a business decision. It shapes how you staff, how you plan, and how you define the relationship with clients. But the AUM model is neither as old nor as inevitable as it feels.

I was in West Texas recently to witness firsthand the emerging practical applications of artificial intelligence. What I saw bolstered my conviction about the technology’s progress and the need to mold it rather than resist the change.

In the race to build the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has an enviable position: The company has a healthy cloud computing business, makes its own chips, and has struck deals to share them with companies like Anthropic PBC and Meta Platforms Inc.

To understand the full impact of AI on advisor productivity, it’s important to look beyond speed alone. The more relevant question is whether efficiency gains are creating meaningful breathing room or simply raising expectations and expanding the scope of work.

I’m all about trying to build bridges and fix things, and I am also a realist. I often tell clients there is a right way, and then there is what you can get done within your environment. I’ll always lean toward the second one.

The College for Financial Planning is a degree-granting institution offering various financial certification programs. It provides graduate degree, non-degree and continuing professional education programs for students. Founded in 1972, today it is part of Kaplan Financial and has trained over 165,000 professionals.

Scalable personalization means saving time while not sacrificing the “secret sauce” that is unique to your practice. Time savings can come from scaling portfolio construction via model portfolios or direct indexing, adding tools or talent to complement strengths, and using technology like AI.

The thinking behind space solar makes some sense: The sun doesn’t always shine on Earth, which means solar panels on the ground aren’t always gathering energy. There are no clouds to block the sun in space, so aside from a couple of times per year around the equinoxes, panels in GEO are constantly bombarded with solar rays.

Sophisticated clients and institutional prospects are already asking wealth management firms about AI governance. The firms with coherent answers are winning trust their competitors cannot buy back quickly.

Listening is a skill that can be taught, can be learned, and can be practiced. If a client doesn’t think their advisor is really listening to them, they might take that opportunity to find another advisor who does.

SpaceX also is ramping up its spending. The company said in April it’s struck an agreement for the right to acquire artificial intelligence startup Cursor for $60 billion later this year, or to pay $10 billion for the companies’ work together.

Women consistently report that the quality of their relationship with an advisor is their number one driver of satisfaction. They are not just looking for investment expertise. They are looking for partnership and a sense that their advisor understands what matters most to them.

An advisor who is involuntarily terminated should not assume the Broker Protocol is off the table. The text supports a good-faith argument that a terminated advisor can still qualify as a “departing” advisor who moves from one Broker Protocol signatory firm to another.