John O’Connell was recently published in Kiplinger, the second in his four-part series on AI concentration risk, arguing that AI isn’t an industry but a six-layer supply chain. His point is that investors talk about AI the way they talked about “tech” in 1999, as one industry with one business model, when it actually...
John O’Connell was recently featured in Connect Money on meeting workflows as a profitability problem for wealth firms. Drawing on his Oasis Group white paper, sponsored by GReminders, his argument is that firms chasing scale should focus less on expanding advisor reach and more on redesigning the work around client meetings, since fragmented scheduling,...
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...
John O'Connell was recently published in ThinkAdvisor where he argued that the wealth transfer is a retention event most firms are already losing. Cerulli finds only 27% of investors expecting an inheritance plan to keep the family advisor, falling to 20% once it transfers, while Capgemini finds 81% switch within a year or two....
John O'Connell was recently published in PowerAdvice on who really wins and loses now that Vanguard is buying Altruist. He walks through six constituencies. Schwab is exposed but not endangered, with its cash sweep business the clearest target. Altruist's existing advisors are the clearest winners, gaining Vanguard's balance sheet for free, while Fidelity, Robinhood,...
John O'Connell was recently featured in Wealth Solutions Report where he discussed a new legal risk from AI notetakers. The notetaker in your client meetings isn't a passive tool, it's a third party recording people who may never have agreed to be recorded. A federal judge in the Otter.ai privacy litigation let the core...
John O'Connell was recently published in Kiplinger on why most firms miscalculate AI ROI. His argument is that the vendor's token bill is just the tip of the iceberg, and the costs that actually decide whether AI pays off never appear on that invoice. There are three: review, because every output reaching a client...
John O'Connell was recently published in Advisor Perspectives on the AI-washing problem in WealthTech. Just as greenwashing described managers marketing ESG claims they couldn't back up, AI washing describes vendors relabeling rules-based automation as AI to justify premium pricing, and the market is now flooded with claims of wildly varying credibility. His single most...
John was recently published in Financial Advisor Magazine. His article focused on the data risks many firms may be exposing themselves to when they integrate Claude Teams into their infrastructure. Read the Full Article Here
