For most of 2024 and 2025, the Client Meeting Support category was one of the fastest growing sections of the Kitces AdvisorTech Map. This was thanks to a plethora of new AI notetaker tools that sprang up once entrepreneurs realized the potential for Large Language Model (LLM)-based tools to solve a major pain point for advisors around client meetings: The need to prepare before the meeting by reviewing old client information to bring up relevant talking points; the need to take detailed notes during the meeting (while somehow managing to stay present in the conversation itself) and log those notes in the advisor's CRM or archiving system, and the need to perform all manner of tasks after the meeting like sending a summary email to the client and assigning follow-up work to other advisory team members. All of which, according to Kitces Research on Advisor Productivity, can take on average around two hours to complete for each client meeting.
But as more and more AI notetakers piled onto the Map, it became ever more clear that the actual market for AI notetakers wouldn't be enough to sustain the 15-plus providers jostling to compete with each other. This has become even more true since other technology platforms have begun to roll out their own AI notetaking tools (e.g., Advisor360's Parrot AI, Altruist's Hazel, and Wealthbox's in-house AI notetaker) that could eliminate the need to use a third-party solution altogether. And with Jump emerging as the clear category leader (garnering a nearly 10% adoption rate in the most recent Kitces Research on Advisor Technology, which was conducted even before Jump's $20 million capital raise that allowed it to lean even further into marketing and acquire Mobile Assistant along with its user base), and Zocks coming in as a relatively distant second, the writing seems to be on the wall for the remaining AI notetakers: Either pivot to a different use case, try to get acquired by another AdvisorTech company to integrate into their platform, or else it will be a hard road ahead to remain a viable business. The only question is when we'll reach that tipping point, and how quickly other solutions will combine, shift categories, or drop out of the race entirely once the exodus begins.
Now we're starting to see signs of that tipping point beginning to arrive, as with the news this month that Zeplyn is redesigning its platform and launching new "agentic" AI tools, representing a shift away from its prior branding as a straightforward AI notetaker.
There's been a lot of buzz about agentic AI as the next frontier in AI technology, but it's still somewhat unclear what shape agentic AI would take in an advisory firm context. Zeplyn's version appears to act as an interface for firmwide client information, pulling in data from client meeting notes, CRM records, emails, and documents to answer advisors' questions and perform tasks like composing email responses to client questions. For instance, if an advisor wants to see how much a certain client has contributed to their IRA this year, they can simply ask Zeplyn's chatbot which can pull in the information itself, rather than the advisor needing to log into their custodial platform and find the correct client account.
But while that sounds useful enough, the challenge with agentic AI tools in the advisory world so far is that it's been hard to identify exactly which problems that they help solve for advisors. If the value proposition is "it can do anything or answer any question", it ironically becomes difficult to point to any one specific problem that it does solve. And so the challenge for Zeplyn, as it has been for most tools in the AI Assistant category of the AdvisorTech Map, will be to articulate what it can really help "assist" with. Or to put it differently, a freeform chatbox that can answer any client-related question often sounds great – until it's time to actually ask it a question, at which point simply finding the wording to ask the "right" question to ask can become its own blocking point.
But from a broader perspective, Zeplyn's shift towards agentic tools is an indication that, after more than a year of explosive growth in the Client Meeting Support category followed by a gradual plateauing, we may be seeing the signs of an exodus of companies that either pivot away from meeting notes or drop off the Map altogether. Because as is unfortunately often the case in AdvisorTech, there is really only room for one or two "winners" in any given category, and the AI notetaker field appears to be no exception. And while the rapidly shifting landscape of AI may create some hope among other providers that Jump and Zocks aren't as entrenched as they seem, the early signs of pivoting from providers like Zeplyn shows that not everyone plans to wait to find out.
This article first appeared on the Nerd’s Eye View at Kitces.com at https://kitc.es/advisortech-jan2026, and has been reprinted here with permission.
Ben Henry-Moreland
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
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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