Your AI pilot will look cheap. That is the trap. The per-task cost that looked trivial in a controlled test does not hold when you put the tool in front of your whole firm, and the gap between the two is not small. Enterprises that scaled past the pilot stage discovered the real cost only...
John O'Connell was recently quoted in Wealth Solutions Report on why integrating advisory tech stacks hasn't solved firms' data problems. According to John, integration moves data between systems, but it doesn't create intelligence across them. Tools like Zapier sync fields, not behavioral context. Take CRMs and email platforms. They were never designed to work...
Access The Oasis Group's AI WealthTech Map, a resource that financial advisors and wealth management firms can use to find leading artificial intelligence solutions and AI-focused firms serving the wealth management industry. The map follows the lifecycle of a wealth management relationship and is organized into 8 categories, identifying and categorizing 106 leading technology firms.
John O'Connell was recently featured in Advisorpedia arguing that firms misdiagnose the advisor shortage. 37% of advisors are planning to retire within a decade and demand is outpacing the talent pipeline, yet most firms treat it as an HR problem when it's an operational design problem. John's prescription is to stop competing for experienced...
John O'Connell was recently quoted in Wealth Solutions Report on why integrating advisory tech stacks hasn't solved firms' data problems. He said connecting systems isn't the same as making them work together. As John put it, integration moves data between systems but doesn't create intelligence across them. CRMs and email platforms were never designed...
John O'Connell recently wrote in WealthManagement.com about why firms keep making expensive wealth tech mistakes: every AI tool looks impressive in a controlled demo where the data is clean, the workflow is choreographed, and the edge cases your firm would actually hit never surface, so the real trap is letting the vendor set the...
You signed a contract for an AI tool. The bill arrives measured in something called tokens, or credits, or messages. Last month it cost one number. This month it costs twice that. Nobody on your leadership team can tell you why. You do not need to understand the engineering to fix this. You need to understand...
John O'Connell was recently interviewed by Wealth Management about Cybersecurity adoption among RIAs. Adoption has remained low, and the reason isn't awareness, most firms have outsourced IT and assumed that covers cybersecurity, when in reality it's a distinct, multi-part discipline spanning employee training, endpoint security, email security, cloud security, and field hygiene for traveling...
John O'Connell wrote this piece for Rethinking65 on why advisors expanding their AI use should start in the back office, not with clients. According to J.D. Power's 2025 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study, 35% of advisors identified AI as the top technology their firms should invest in, and satisfaction scores were measurably higher among...
John O'Connell, CEO of The Oasis Group, wrote this piece for Advisor Perspectives on why AI washing is now more than a marketing nuisance. It's become a real threat to the industry's ability to weather the coming advisor shortage. McKinsey's January 2026 analysis projected that nearly 40% of current financial advisors will retire within...
