Financial advisors in the United States are projecting sustained growth over the next several years, even as the structure of the advice business faces a fundamental overhaul.
New survey research from Natixis Investment Managers – which polled 300 U.S.-based advisors as part of a broader study of 2,950 financial professionals across 23 countries – found investment professionals were sharply focused on artificial intelligence, an aging client base, and the largest generational wealth transfer in modern history.
With a median AUM of $218 million and average AUM equal to $5.7 billion, respondents in the US reported average asset growth of 12.5% over the prior 12 months. Looking ahead, advisors expect that pace to settle slightly to an average of 10.7% over the next year, before rising again to an average of 11.2% annually over a three-year horizon.
Dave Goodsell, executive director of the Natixis Center for Investor Insight, sees the headline findings as a sign that advisors are preparing for a structural reset while navigating a fog of nearer-term uncertainty across markets and the economy.
"The immediate priority is helping clients protect portfolios and make sound decisions in a volatile environment," Goodsell said. "The longer-term imperative is to adapt their businesses for a market where AI-powered tools, next-generation investors, and evolving client expectations redefine the competitive landscape."
A 78% majority of U.S. advisors identify traditional financial professionals as their biggest competition. But in five years, just 26% expect that to remain the case, with 35% anticipating that self-directed tools powered by AI will become their greatest competitive threat.
Rather than taking things lying down, a majority of advisors are actively trying to apply AI to their advantage. Seven in ten (70%) say AI tools have the potential to free up time with clients, 76% believe advisors who adopt AI will gain a competitive edge, and two-thirds say the technology could drive market growth over the next two decades. At the same time, 58% acknowledge that integrating AI into day-to-day workflows has proved more difficult than they anticipated.
The tension between AI's promise and its practical limits is reshaping how advisors frame their own value. Ninety-one percent of US respondents said they are leaning into personal relationships and accountability when positioning themselves against AI, and only 12% believe the technology will put them out of business, compared with 30% of global advisors surveyed.
Marina Gross, head of Natixis Investment Managers Solutions, said customization is becoming a clearer differentiator as client expectations rise.
"Advisors are evolving their businesses to compete in a world where clients have more tools, more information and higher expectations for personalization," Gross said. She pointed specifically to direct indexing, noting that 67% of U.S. advisors in the survey said the strategy can help deliver after-tax alpha.
The survey underscores that the multi-trillion-dollar transfer of assets between generations is no longer a future planning concern – it is an immediate business challenge. Advisors report retaining a spouse's assets an average of 75% of the time following a client transition, but that retention rate falls to 56% for next-generation heirs and drops further to 44% in cases where advisors manage assets for both a parent and a child. Nearly four in ten advisors (39%) say they are increasingly worried they will be unable to retain assets through wealth transfer events.
Earlier Natixis research found that 41% of US advisors see the great wealth transfer as an existential risk, and that nearly half of U.S. investors expecting to inherit wealth say they do not plan to retain their benefactor's advisor.
The wave of advisor retirements is only adding to the pressure. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. respondents view advisor grey-outs as a significant growth opportunity, even as 65% acknowledge it will widen the advice gap. U.S. advisors appear more optimistic than their global peers about navigating the transition: only 37% say they are struggling to attract younger advisors to bridge the demographic gap, compared with 51% globally.
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. advisors (74%) said they are focused on proactively capturing next-generation assets, with approaches ranging from adding specialized planning services and digital tools to exploring social media prospecting and hiring younger advisors. More than half (52%) believe next-generation investors will expect access to private markets as table stakes in an advisory relationship, and 60% anticipate the current administration will clear a regulatory path for defined contribution plans to incorporate private assets within the next 12 months.
In the near term, market volatility is the more immediate concern. Sixty-five percent of U.S. advisors ranked rising geopolitical uncertainty among their top economic worries, and a greater 89% share said they expect further market turbulence because of it. That uncertainty has already altered client behavior, as 64% of advisors report that many of their clients want to hold more cash in the face of geopolitical drama that, at least currently, has enough twists to rival even the most sensational Latin telenovelas.
Advisors described a having to walk a tightrope of keeping clients from retreating too aggressively into cash while also curbing reactive behavior. The three biggest investment mistakes advisors say clients are making right now: emotionally reacting to headlines, cited by 73%; attempting to time the market, shared by 62%; and maintaining unrealistic return expectations, a challenge for 53%.
Inflation risk is adding to the difficulty. Nearly half of US advisors ranked inflation among their biggest concerns, while 55% say oil market volatility makes an interest rate increase more likely than a cut in the second half of 2026. On that note, around three-fifths (61%) argue that the need to outpace inflation over time is one of the strongest reasons for clients to remain in equities.
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