John O’Connell was recently published in PowerAdvice on what Schwab and Robinhood are really building. Schwab is industrializing the personalized client relationship, pushing AI-generated portfolio commentary to the millions of sub-$1M clients who don’t qualify for a human relationship manager, while Robinhood is building infrastructure that captures the client either way, through live agentic trading, an in-app marketplace referring customers to RIAs, and an AI layer that serves both retail users and their advisors. Neither is an immediate threat to a $500M RIA, but the real threat is generational: the 35-year-old who inherits after a decade on Robinhood will consult the platform she trusts, not an advisor she’s never met.