M1 Advisor bets AI can serve clients wealth managers turn away

Personal finance app M1 is betting that an AI financial advisor can serve the households traditional wealth managers turn away. 

The Chicago-based investing platform launched M1 Advisor on Oct. 6, 2026, offering fiduciary advice through its SEC-registered affiliate, M1 Advisory Services LLC, with no account minimum and no advisory fee through Dec. 31, 2027. Clients must hold an M1 brokerage account and opt in through a separate advisory agreement to join the robo-RIA. M1 charges a seperate $3 monthly platform fee, which is waived for clients who hold $10,000 or more with M1 for at least one day in a 30-day billing cycle.

“Because M1 Advisor is built into M1, it works from the live accounts—the actual positions, cost basis and cash—and when a client decides to act, they can do it in the same place,” said M1’s founder and CEO Brian Barnes. “That's what lets it answer a question like "which shares should I sell to cover this tax bill?" with the real tax cost of each choice, and then let the client carry it out. That integration is how we bring the services of a traditional wealth management firm — investing, retirement accounts, borrowing, cash and advice.” 

M1 reports more than 300,000 clients and more than $14 billion in assets platform-wide as of September 2026, according to a company fact sheet. Its advisory arm is far smaller, as M1 Advisory Services reported $1.48 billion in non-discretionary regulatory assets across 11,400 accounts in a Form ADV filed Oct. 1. 

“Minimums exist because human time is expensive. A wealth manager can’t profitably serve a family with $100,000, so the industry draws a line, often at $1 million or more. AI lowers the cost to the point that the line no longer needs to exist,” said Barnes. 

M1 joins a growing field of RIA startups that use AI instead of human advisors, including Y Combinator backed Astor and San Francisco-based Era. Other venture-backed RIAs like Range have detailed plans to replace their human advisors with AI. 

Who M1’s AI advisor is built for 

“In practice, we’re building for people who are doing well and want to do better – often in their 30s and 40s, earning a good income, with real savings but below where a private wealth manager would take them on,” Barnes said. “M1 Advisor is meant to be our clients’ primary source of financial advice. We don’t expect most of them to also work with a human advisor.” 

M1 Advisory’s Form ADV lists 14 employees. None of them perform investment advisory functions. The filing reports $1.48 billion in non-discretionary regulatory assets across 11,400 accounts, and the firm registers under the SEC’s internet adviser exemption. 

The firm’s Form ADV Part 2A brochure, dated Sept. 30, 2026, says no personnel generate or modify client-specific advice. It also says humans do not review individual accounts on a client-by-client basis. M1 Advisor cannot place trades or move money, so clients act on its recommendations themselves. The brochure names Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Amazon among its AI providers. 

“Around the models, we’ve built the infrastructure that lets us stand behind what M1 Advisor says: our own investment knowledge base, the client’s actual account data, compliance rules on what it can recommend, and testing before release and monitoring after. We’re the fiduciary, whichever model is underneath,” Barnes said. 

When the AI advice is wrong 

A regulatory disclosure from M1 warns that AI systems may produce plausible-sounding but incorrect information. It tells clients to independently verify specific facts that are material to an investment decision. Mainstream AI models failed to correctly answer financial questions in 57% of cases, according to new research from advisor fintech Saturn.

“M1 Advisor is held to the same fiduciary standard as any SEC-registered adviser, and clients have the same remedies. Our client agreement doesn’t ask clients to give up our fiduciary duty, their rights under the securities laws, or our liability for gross negligence or material breach. If we fail our duty to a client, they have a remedy and we’re accountable for it,” Barnes said. “‘The advice was wrong because we failed you’ is on us. ‘The investment went down’ is investing.” 

Clients can link outside accounts via Plaid so M1 Advisor sees their full picture. However, the brochure says its securities recommendations apply only to accounts on the M1 platform. It also says M1 Advisor is not an ERISA fiduciary and that its rollover information is educational only. 

"We thoroughly test before changes reach clients. A new [AI] model or version goes through evaluation at every release, which scores answers for accuracy, suitability and compliance, and we keep monitoring once it's live," said Barnes. "The models themselves are improving quickly, and every client benefits as they do. M1 Advisor will keep getting smarter, faster and more capable over time."

Clients must use affiliated broker-dealer M1 Finance LLC, which earns payment for order flow, securities lending revenue and cash sweep revenue. Some swept cash goes to affiliated B2 Bank. M1 Finance paid $850,000 in March 2024 after Finra found violations tied to its influencer program, as InvestmentNews reported at the time. 

M1’s fee waiver runs through Dec. 31, 2027. M1’s brochure filing summary refers to an annual advisory fee of up to 0.20%, but M1 says that language came from an early beta draft and no longer applies to the live product. 

“We also haven’t settled on pricing. We’re focused on delivering value first. If we charge in the future, it will be fully justified by the benefits M1 Advisor brings to people’s finances,” Barnes said. 

Barnes founded M1 in Chicago in 2015. The company had raised more than $300 million in venture funding by July 2021, when a $150 million Series E led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 valued it at $1.45 billion. That round followed a $75 million Series D led by Coatue in March 2021.