Masters in Business · Friday, September 4, 2026
Bill McNabb believes the future of financial advice will involve a spectrum, with a significant portion leaning towards human-centric advisors, augmented by technology. He argues that while automation is useful, the 'human touch' is essential for preventing investors from making detrimental decisions, especially during market volatility.
“So look, I think there's going to be a spectrum. I do think there will be people who go the automated way, fully automated, the original Wealthfront model, if you will. But increasingly, I'm pretty convinced that the bulk of the people, investors, are going to go with advisors where there's a human touch. I think that human touch is incredibly important.”
“And so all the technological advances that we're seeing, whether it's Vanilla's software planning, whether it's the platform that Altros is developing, whether it's Finney's ability to help you, you know, grow your business more effectively and organically, those things free up the advisor to do the personal stuff. And so, you know, I don't know at Ritholtz what your average number of clients per advisor is, but let's just say it's 100, which is in the industry kind of a norm. I see no reason why somebody can't serve 300 more effectively than they serve the 100 today with the technology that's coming.”
“And the reason I think it's important to have that person is I think that the really thoughtful advisor can really prevent you from getting off the reservation. The automated programs are great, but people can opt out of them pretty quickly. And we do see that.”