If you ask a financial advisor what frustrates them most about their technology, the odds are that their reply will be something about the lack of effective data integration between different software tools. With multiple systems relying on the same client data – from custodial platforms, CRM, and portfolio management to a core financial planning and perhaps multiple specialized planning tools – the ideal scenario would be that data that gets entered or updated in one piece of software would automatically trigger updates across all the rest of them. And yet, despite decades of development of APIs to build data connections between software tools, the integration capabilities of advisor technology remains at best maddeningly inconsistent and all too often failing to live up to the promises of frictionless data movement between platforms – to the point where the most recent Kitces Research on Advisor Technology found that advisors on average were much less satisfied with the integration capabilities of their tech stack than with the technology tools themselves.
For some technology providers, the solution to the ongoing integration challenge has been to combine multiple software components within a single platform, with an open flow of data between each component, to theoretically provide for one seamlessly integrated workflow. These "all-in-one" platforms – like Orion, Envestnet, Advyzon, Black Diamond, Advisor360, and many others – have gained significant adoption over the years, with the latest Kitces AdvisorTech Research showing that a majority of advisors (61%) use at least some type of all-in-one software. And yet they've never exactly dominated the market, at least as much as one would expect given the prevalence of software integration as a pain point for advisors. If 61% of advisors are using all-in-ones, then 39% would presumably rather pick and choose the individual components of their tech stack that work best for them, even despite the integration pain (and likely higher cost of individual non-bundled solutions) of doing so. And from an advisor productivity standpoint, Kitces AdvisorTech Research found little difference in revenue per team employee between advisors who use individual "best-in-class" components and those who use all-in-ones – and actually found higher revenue per advisor for those who took a best-in-class approach. So despite the longstanding complaints about integration challenges for advisors, there's little evidence that it makes a substantive impact on the bottom line.
In that context, it's notable that the all-in-one platform Advisor360 has announced this month that it will be adding financial planning technology to its platform (which currently includes CRM, portfolio management, performance reporting, account opening, billing, and other functions). It isn't building or buying its own financial planning software, but instead is embedding Conquest Planning's software directly in the platform – without requiring users to buy an additional Conquest Planning license, which effectively bundles Conquest and Advisor360 into a single platform.
For Advisor360, there are two big implications to the move to introduce embedded financial planning. One is that it adds yet another feature to Advisor360's all-in-one platform as part of its goal of "unifying the advisor's thread of work across planning, execution, and client management" – i.e., to become the one software platform that the advisor uses for every job task throughout their workday. But the second implication is that Advisor360 is continuing to consolidate advisors' data sources into its "Unified Data Fabric", a process that started with its purchase of the Parrot AI notetaker in early 2025, continued with the release of its Tandem CRM and data hub in 2025 and went even further earlier this year with the announcement of what it calls an "AI-native wealth operating system" to bridge together its multiple capabilities and build AI agents to run workflows across them.
Which is itself a slightly new angle to the argument for all-in-one software: In order for tools like AI agents to achieve their full capabilities, they need full access to the data from the systems that they use (in the same way that a human employee needs a login to all of the different software systems that they need to do their job). Bringing new tools like financial planning software in-house isn't just about gaining more efficiency by reducing the need to click back and forth between software platforms, then: It's also about making sure there is an uninterrupted flow of data to feed into Advisor360's unified data layer so its planned AI agents can work as advertised.
Which is perhaps the biggest reason why Advisor360 (as well as Advyzon, which has announced the pending launch of its own financial planning tool) is venturing into financial planning software despite the well-publicized struggles of other all-in-one platforms to successfully integrate financial planning into their otherwise portfolio management-dominant platforms – see, for instance, Orion, which has struggled to gain meaningful adoption of its financial planning tool since it acquired Advizr and converted it to Orion Planning; and MoneyGuide, which has seen steady declines in advisor adoption and satisfaction since its acquisition by Envestnet. Advisor360 already had API integrations with multiple financial planning tools like eMoney, MoneyGuide, and RightCapital going back to its roots as an in-house technology platform for Commonwealth Financial Network advisors. But API integration just provides a small window into the data living on a platform, not necessarily the full picture – and the full picture is what's needed to have a fully functioning AI agents running on top of that data.
The question going forward, though, is whether the promised benefits of AI agents running over a unified data layer will be enough to convince advisors to go through the pain of switching financial planning platforms. Especially given that Conquest, despite having significant adoption in its homeland of Canada, is still a relative up-and-comer in the US amidst the dominant "big 3" of eMoney, RightCapital, and MoneyGuide, so there are few US Conquest users for whom switching to Advisor360's embedded option would be a comparatively smooth transition. And the reality is that it's really not certain that AI agents will actually yield the kinds of efficiency gains that AI adherents in the tech industry are promising. Advisor360 in its own press release refers only to "future enhancements that will surface planning-driven opportunities through built-in AI assistants", meaning that those agents haven't even been built yet and advisors who sign up for the bundled platform will need to wait to see whether or not they'll actually materialize.
So while it's possible that some advisors will look at Advisor360's embedded Conquest Planning tool and decide to adopt it based on the merits of the tool itself – which already has some of the most advanced internal AI capabilities of any of the major financial planning software providers – it's debatable whether the ability to use Conquest embedded within Advisor360 is itself worth making the significant investment in time and resources of switching planning software. Because while there have been many arguments by all-in-one proponents over the decades about why it's better to have everything in one place, it's easier to make promises of significant efficiency gains than it is to deliver those tangible gains in reality. And as the continued healthy market for individual planning solutions shows, there's a material number of advisors who will be reluctant to jump to an all-in-one until there's compelling evidence that it will really make a difference to their bottom line.
This article first appeared on the Nerd’s Eye View at Kitces.com at https://kitc.es/advisortech-may2026, and has been reprinted here with permission.
Ben Henry-Moreland is a Senior Financial Planning Nerd at Kitces.com, where he specializes in writing and speaking on financial planning topics including tax, practice management, and technology. He also co-authors the monthly Kitces #AdvisorTech column. Drawing from his experience as a financial planner and a solo advisory firm owner, Ben is passionate about fulfilling the site’s mission of making financial advicers better and more successful.
Michael Kitces is Head of Planning Strategy at Focus Partners Wealth, which provides an evidence-based approach to private wealth management for near- and current retirees, and Focus Partners Advisor Solutions, a turnkey wealth management services provider supporting thousands of independent financial advisors through the scaling phase of growth.
In addition, he is a co-founder of the XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, fpPathfinder, and New Planner Recruiting, the former Practitioner Editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, the host of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, and the publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website Kitces.com, dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. In 2010, Michael was recognized with one of the FPA’s “Heart of Financial Planning” awards for his dedication and work in advancing the profession.
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