Osaic in talks with Anthropic as AI reshapes advisor workforce

Osaic, one of the largest independent broker-dealer networks in the U.S., is in talks with Anthropic, an executive told InvestmentNews, as company leaders laid out how artificial intelligence could reshape the work of its advisors and the staff who support them.

Cindy Hamel, head of business operations and execution at Osaic, confirmed the talks with the Claude maker during an interview at ConnectED 2026, Osaic's flagship conference, held November 8–11 in Atlanta. The talks come as fellow broker-dealer Stifel Financial announced Nov. 10 that it is working with Anthropic to rebuild its advisor dashboard platform with Claude.

“We’ve had active conversations with Anthropic on a number of different topics, and those will be areas that we continue,” Hamel said. "That's one of the benefits of scale and our ability to service all the markets that we service from a custodial perspective. We have tremendous deep connections with our custodial partners, and so we're able to have those kinds of conversations."

Osaic, which has about 10,000 advisors in its network and over $800 billion in assets under administration, would join a growing roster of wealth firms working with Anthropic as the company nears its IPO. Charles Schwab in September became the first RIA custodian to integrate Claude for Financial Advisors, while LPL Financial in February added Anthropic’s AI plug-ins for its 30,000-plus advisors.

Client data security comes first

Hamel said any AI partnership for Osaic would prioritize protecting client information. For comparison, Schwab’s custodian integration deal with Anthropic bars the AI company from retaining advisor and client data for model training, even for advisors without enterprise plans.

“I think there’s all different things that we have to think about, particularly around the private ecosystem that we want to create, and making sure that we’re keeping client data extremely secure from that perspective,” Hamel said. "That's all part of how we have to thoughtfully think about the rollout of who we partner with and how we engage, and what services do we take advantage of."

In August, Osaic named Sayee Bellamkonda its first chief AI and technology officer, a newly created role overseeing advisor and client-facing technology, including AI and cybersecurity.

Osaic relies on outside clearing providers, including BNY and Fidelity's National Financial Services, rather than operating its own self-clearing infrastructure, unlike major competitors such as LPL Financial, Ameriprise and Raymond James. Shannon Reid, Osaic’s president and head of advisor growth and engagement, said that being non self-clearing lets Osaic integrate vetted third-party technology tools at a faster pace.

“We’re able to plug those in a lot faster, and frankly, if something better comes along or we need to change in the future, we’re able to unplug them a lot faster,” she said. "We just have to find a way to connect these tools to one another so that they talk to each other, but we don't have to build them and we don't have to maintain them. Other large firms that have a lot of internal technology have to spend a lot of money year over year over year maintaining those systems."

Osaic looks to move data 'bidirectionally'

Envestnet is a key wealthtech partner for Osaic's advisor network. Both Osaic and Envestnet count Bain Capital and Reverence Capital among their private equity investors. Envestnet is majority-owned by Bain Capital, which also holds a minority stake in Osaic. Conversely, Osaic is majority-owned by Reverence Capital, which also holds a minority stake in Envestnet.

CEO Jamie Price described a "plug and play" ecosystem for advisors across the Osaic network, where they can select from tools such as Jump, Zocks, GReminders, Vanilla, and Redtail CRM, combining as they best see fit.

“Note takers, for example, Jump and Zocks come along and boom, 35% of our advisors uptake in six months. Never seen that of a tool ever that quickly,” said Price. "Our job, I think, is to not get married to any tool because it's going to change so fast that we just need to plug and play those tools into our architecture and make sure what we can do is move data bidirectionally back and forth really easy, but be totally agnostic to the tool if we want to bring the most efficiency and capabilities and currency to our advisors."

Can AI help offset advisor shortage?

McKinsey & Co. projects a shortfall of 90,000 to 110,000 advisors by 2034 at current productivity levels. Price said AI may allow Osaic’s existing workforce to fill that gap, by freeing current administrative assistants to become financial advisors.

“We’ve got 9,000 registered assistants in Osaic that support 10,000 advisors. I suspect most of them won’t be doing the type of work they do today because most of the administration, et cetera, is getting automated right before our eyes,” Price said. “So they’re already licensed. Can they face off more against clients going forward and soak up some of the decline in the advisor count?"

Price joked that an AI productivity boost could maybe be "God's way of solving the shortage of advisors." Raymond James CEO Paul Shoukry also said earlier this year that AI will help solve the advisor industry's talent shortage. In 2025, Schwab said the RIA industry would need to make 70,000 new hires by 2030 to keep up with current growth trends.

"How do we get those people that today are doing administrative jobs actually more trained to deal with clients?" added Price. "It'll be interesting to see whether we truly have a shrinkage of advisors, or where people are going to be doing other jobs and AI picks up so much scalability of the business. I suspect we'll have a shortage, but maybe not as bad as we all think."