AI 'vibe coding' tools are making the AdvisorTech Map bigger, not smaller

If a person wants to build and sell a piece of software, there's traditionally been a fairly significant upfront cost in doing so. Building software has required knowing how to code, and so the first step for someone who isn't able to write the code themselves is to hire a developer or engineer to come up with the initial prototype of the product, and then to test, iterate, and improve upon it until it's finally ready to sell to the public. And so when the software finally is ready to sell, there's a sizeable hurdle for making up the upfront cost (and if the founder took any venture capital funding to finance those startup costs, that adds another level of revenue and profits needed to meet the investors' return expectations).

This is one of the reasons that many of the solutions on the Kitces AdvisorTech Map are broad-based tools in commonly used categories like financial planning, portfolio management, investment data/analytics, CRM, and digital marketing. Not because there's so much inherent demand for yet another CRM or portfolio management system, but because the potential user base for these tools is so large – approaching 100% of advisors – that even getting just a small slice of the market can put a startup software provider on a sustainable footing. In a world where there's a high startup cost to getting a software product off the ground, it's just easier to make up that cost with a broad-based tool that can be used by almost any advisor than with a narrower point solution that will only conceivably be used by a smaller slice of advisors. (The same is true for new features in existing software: It takes resources to develop new features, so the highest priority on the product roadmap will go to the features with the most common use cases to recoup the costs.)

This doesn't meant that more narrowly focused tools haven't existed; clearly, the range of specialized planning and client engagement tools speaks to the fact that more niche tools can exist in the AdvisorTech ecosystem. But those tools often have a tough road to follow: Reach too few advisors, and they don't have resources to maintain and update the software to keep it viable; but if they prove popular enough they risk being undercut by bigger platforms co-opting their key features.

But despite the economics of the industry, smaller 'point' software solutions are still necessary because every advisory firm is built a little different. Firms have their own target clients, fee structures, investment philosophies, operational processes, and client deliverables. And so there will almost inevitably be gaps between the tools that an advisor needs and the software that's available on the market. Which in the past often meant either relying on spreadsheets to do the task, or hiring a developer to create a custom-built solution (at which point the advisor might decide to try selling that tool to other firms as well in order to at least recoup the cost of building it – which is how many tools from eMoney to Orion to iRebal were originally launched).

But just in the last year or so, however, the economics of building and developing software – especially smaller, niche-ier point solutions – have shifted significantly. The emergence of AI 'vibe-coding' tools like Replit, Bolt, and Canva Code, which write the code for a software tool based on natural language prompt, means that an advisor without coding or software development expertise can build a workable software prototype in an afternoon – and that an entrepreneur who wants to build an actual saleable product can do so with a fraction of the time and engineering resources needed for creating software in the traditional way.

The drastic reduction in the upfront cost needed to create viable software has led to many predictions that the AdvisorTech landscape will be upended in short order - that there's no reason to spend thousands of dollars each year on off-the-shelf software subscriptions when it's possible to build a decent replica in a few days' time, and so the major software providers will be wiped out when advisors flock to their own homebuilt solutions instead.

That's always seemed unlikely – the reality is that most advisors are fairly happy with the software they have already, have little interest in being software builders, and are fine with continuing to pay someone else to build and maintain the tools they use. But the more likely-seeming outcome – and the one we've seen more evidence of so far – is the opposite: That the lowering of barriers to building and releasing software will lead to even more providers on the AdvisorTech Map. Specifically, those with more niche point solutions that were less economically viable under the traditional software development cycle, but which AI vibe coding allows to be built much cheaper and therefore don't require as much user growth to make up for the initial cost.

Just this month, five new solutions first appearing on the Kitces AdvisorTech Map fit that description. First there's Fingale, a post-meeting tool specifically made to make updates and trigger workflows in Wealthbox based on an uploaded meeting transcript or voice memo. Next is MySSAgent, a Social Security optimization tool using AI to analyze a client's situation and come up with the optimal claiming strategy. Then there's Leveridge, which aims to be the “Holistiplan of real estate” by pulling relevant data from Schedule E of a client's tax return and using it to create reports and projections that can be exported into planning software like eMoney or RightCapital. There's also PocketFiling, for investors or advisors who are following specific publicly traded stocks (e.g., for a client who has concentrated company stock holdings), which pulls updated 10-K filings each quarter and highlights the additions, deletions, and changes in reported risk factors. And finally there's OpAlpha, which sifts through data in the advisor's existing CRM to track client “relationship health”, noting which clients are more or less engaged and flagging which ones the advisor may need to check in with.

What's notable about these new solutions is that they're all designed to fill the gaps left by existing software tools. AI notetakers might suggest follow-up actions after a meeting, but not all of them actually trigger those actions in Wealthbox, so Fingale fills that gap. Comprehensive financial planning software might include some basic Social Security optimization tools, but they aren't all designed to cover more complex edge cases, and so MySSAgent fills that gap. Picking out Schedule E data on rental properties and turning it into useful reports or planning software inputs is a pain, and so Leveridge fills that gap. Comparing and contrasting subsequent 10-Ks is tedious and difficult, so PocketFiling fills that gap. And CRMs, despite containing most of the advisor's client relationship history, often lack tools for advisors to make use of that data to build and maintain those relationships, and so OpAlpha fills that gap.

And so even though these are all relatively narrow point solutions that may have relatively limited potential for widespread adoption, we're now entering an era where that isn't necessarily a hindrance to getting the software built and released to the public – and so it's looking likely that the AdvisorTech Map will continue to fill out with more and more new solutions designed to fill use cases and functions that are too narrow be viable for most existing software. Which on the plus side means there will be even more solutions for advisors to solve for niche problems that traditional software didn't cover – but on the downside means it will be that marketing and distribution will become that much harder for the increasing number of tools, especially ones that don't fit into neat categories. So for an advisor facing a gap or pain point in their existing software capabilities (and who doesn't want to vibe code their own solution), at this point it's worth looking around to see if someone else is selling a tool to solve it – because even if it seems like a very narrow niche problem, it's increasingly possible that it's still common enough to support a startup software provider!

In the meantime, we've rolled out a beta version of our new AdvisorTech Directory, along with making updates to the latest version of our Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map (produced in collaboration with Craig Iskowitz of Ezra Group)!

This article first appeared on the Nerd’s Eye View at Kitces.com at https://kitc.es/advisortech-june2026, and has been reprinted here with permission.