John O’Connell Featured in Power Advice: What Schwab and Robinhood Are Actually Building

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.