In a crowded, tech-enabled market, who you are matters as much as what you offer. As advisory firms grow through 2026, culture, purpose, and trust are becoming powerful differentiators.
Centering values and identity can allow firms to anchor themselves amid constant change. Innovation without integrity leads to drift; integrity without innovation leads to stagnation. The firms entering 2026 with momentum are balancing thoughtful evolution while staying grounded in who they are.
AssetMark’s Chairman and Group CEO, Lou Maiuri, joined AssetMark’s AM Radio series to share how creating a strategy for the path forward is just the beginning. Learning and growing along the way is what truly compounds over time.
Maiuri put it simply: “If you’re not growing and transforming, you’re dying a slow death.”
Advisors winning in 2026 will be the ones who intentionally evolve across people, products, and platforms.
The center of gravity is moving generationally and behaviorally. What happens now will impact how your firm grows in the future. The Great Wealth Transfer is no longer theoretical; it’s underway.
Younger clients have come to expect their advisors to provide:
Transparency
Planning-first conversations
Values alignment
Digital fluency
As firms grow in 2026 and beyond, the focus must shift from scaling to building continuity, ensuring relationships, experiences, and advice extend across generations.
As access expands and education improves, clients are becoming more aware of opportunities beyond traditional public markets. Clients now expect their advisor to understand how private assets fit into a modern portfolio and to explain how they may support long-term goals.
Private markets are emerging as a vehicle for delivering on evolving client expectations, and for clients who are a right-fit, private markets provide:
Portfolio differentiation beyond public equities and fixed income
Alternative income and risk profiles that complement traditional allocations
A more engaging, forward-looking investment narrative for clients
This shift has raised the bar for advisors. Advisors must understand how private markets work, how to access them responsibly, and how to communicate their role within a broader financial plan.
According to AssetMark’s Advisor Insights survey, 91% of advisors say access to private markets is a core consideration for delivering differentiated value, highlighting the growing gap between prepared firms and those at risk of falling behind.
Education becomes one of the most powerful tools advisors have as this landscape evolves. Firms that invest in learning and in platforms that simplify complexity are better positioned to meet rising client expectations.
The competitive advantage isn’t whether advisors use AI, but how they use it. For leading firms, AI is being applied first to streamline routine, time-intensive work. This frees up advisors to focus on what matters most: relationships, judgment, and personalized guidance.
Advisors are starting with simple, high-impact use cases, including:
Meeting notes, summaries, and prep work
Operational and compliance-adjacent tasks
Content and communication support
Time saved through AI can be reinvested into deeper client conversations and scalable personalization. When used thoughtfully, AI can enhance human connection. It can help advisors explain portfolios more clearly, prepare consistent talk tracks, and tailor guidance at scale, all while keeping the advisor firmly at the center of the relationship.
As client expectations for personalization, responsiveness, and clarity continue to rise, embracing AI now isn’t about keeping up with technology; it’s about relevance, responsiveness, and competitiveness for your firm’s future.
Embracing continuous learning has evolved into a core operating principle for advisory firms in 2026.
The field of financial advising is changing every day. From technology and products to regulation, behavioral finance, and leadership communication, learning is now required across multiple dimensions.
Firms that learn faster adapt faster. And firms that adapt faster are better positioned to meet rising client expectations.
Maiuri explains: “In our industry, so much has changed. I would argue that to be in this industry, you have to be a continuous learner, or you’re not going to do well.”
Resilient firms don’t treat learning as an individual responsibility; they embed it into their culture, incentives, and leadership. In doing so, curiosity becomes a competitive advantage, and growth moves to the forefront.
The advisor of 2026 is not defined by a single tool, product, or strategy, but by a mindset shaped through continuous learning and intentional evolution. They are:
A learner
A translator of complexity
A steward of trust
A bridge between generations
A partner, not just a provider
Mauri says: "Growth is not about doing more — it’s about becoming more capable, relevant, and intentional over time."
Advisors who commit to continuous learning across next-generation relationships, private markets, and AI won’t just adapt to what’s ahead — they’ll help define what 2026 looks like for the entire industry.
©2026 AssetMark, Inc. All rights reserved.
8782594.1 | 02/2026 | EXP 02/29/2028