We just got back from Orion Ascent, and I want to talk about something that's been rattling around in my head since we left.

Every vendor at that conference had an AI announcement. Every single one. Planning tools, CRM platforms, custodians, compliance systems, portfolio management — everybody is shipping AI. And nobody wants to be left behind.

Here's the problem: we've seen this movie before.

The same fragmentation, different paint

For the past 20 years, the wealth management industry has struggled with one core issue — technology that doesn't talk to each other. Advisors run 7-12 disconnected systems. Data lives in silos. Getting a unified view of a client requires logging into five platforms and a spreadsheet.

Now every one of those platforms has its own AI. And none of those AIs talk to each other either.

I'm calling it the AI swivel chair.

You've got eight tabs open. You need to do a planning exercise — go to the planning tool and use their AI. Need to pull CRM notes? Swivel to that tab and ask that AI. Want custodial data analyzed? Different tab, different AI. Tax planning? Another one.

Yes, each individual AI is adding efficiency. The planning tool's AI is genuinely good at planning. The CRM's AI knows your contacts. The custodian's AI can surface account-level insights. These are real improvements.

But zoom out and you're still swiveling between tabs. You're still the integration layer. You're still the human stitching together insights from disconnected systems.

That's not transformation. That's the same fragmentation problem wearing a smarter hat.

Growth without systems is just adding complexity

Jordan Hutchinson put it well at his panel during the conference: "Growth without systems is just adding complexity. The gap between technology capability and adoption is one of the biggest hidden costs in wealth management today."

Read that again. The gap between capability and adoption.

The capability is there. Every vendor is building AI features that are genuinely impressive. The demos are incredible. The use cases are real. But adoption — the part where a firm actually integrates this into how they work every day — is where it falls apart.

And it falls apart because nobody has solved the underlying data problem.

Your planning tool's AI is only as smart as the data it can see. It can't access your CRM notes, your custodial positions, your compliance logs, or your billing data. It's doing AI on a fraction of the picture. Same for every other tool in your stack.

So you end up with six different AIs, each with a partial view, and you — the advisor or ops person — are still the one assembling the full picture.

More than half of advisors know this matters

Orion's WealthTech survey revealed that more than half of advisors see AI as the number one growth catalyst in 2026. Not in the future. This year.

Advisors aren't skeptical about AI. They're excited. They see the potential. They want it.

But the excitement is running headfirst into a practical wall: how do you actually use AI across your firm when your data is scattered across a dozen systems that don't share well?

This is the question I heard over and over at Ascent. Not "should we use AI?" — that debate is settled. The question is "how do I use AI when my tools don't connect?"

The compliance wrinkle

It gets more complicated. Jessica Perez, our VP of Growth, was at another conference right after Ascent. Same AI excitement. Same concerns. But with an added layer — compliance teams raising their hands saying, "We know you all want to use AI. We have to think about how we do this safely and securely."

Fair point. When advisors start experimenting with AI in eight different tools, that's eight different places where client data could be sent, processed, and stored. Eight different security models. Eight different privacy policies. Eight different vendors making promises about how they handle sensitive information.

Compliance officers are right to be cautious. The solution isn't to stop using AI — it's to stop scattering client data across a dozen AI endpoints.

What the unlock actually looks like

If every tool in your stack has its own AI but none of them share data, you have two options.

Option one: Keep swiveling. Use each tool's AI in isolation, accept the fragmented experience, and be the human integration layer between all of them. This is where most firms are today.

Option two: Unify the data first. Get everything — CRM, custodian, portfolio management, planning, compliance, billing — into a single data layer. Then run AI on top of the unified picture.

Option two is the unlock.

When your data lives in one place, AI can actually do what everyone wants it to do. Prepare a comprehensive client review by pulling from every system. Identify at-risk clients by correlating CRM engagement with portfolio performance and planning progress. Surface operational bottlenecks by analyzing workflows across the entire firm.

None of that works in silos. All of it works on unified data.

The model-hopping parallel

Here's something interesting happening in the broader AI world. People are not loyal to a single AI model. When Claude started outperforming in certain areas, people switched from ChatGPT without hesitation. When Google improved Gemini, developers hopped over to test it. When a new model beats the benchmark, users move.

Nobody is afraid to switch models. The barrier to switching is nearly zero.

Now contrast that with WealthTech. Firms stay with technology partners for 10-15 years, even when the experience is mediocre, even when the data sharing is poor, even when better options exist. The switching cost — real and perceived — keeps people stuck.

But the AI revolution is going to compress that dynamic. As AI becomes the primary interface for how advisors interact with their technology, the firms with unified, connected data will be able to adopt whatever model or AI capability comes next. The firms locked into siloed tools will be stuck hoping each individual vendor keeps up.

The ability to be model-agnostic — to run the best AI on your unified data regardless of where it comes from — is a competitive advantage that compounds over time.

What to do about it

If you're an advisor or firm leader staring at the AI swivel chair, here's the practical path forward:

Stop evaluating AI tools in isolation. The question isn't "does this planning tool have good AI?" The question is "can this AI access all of my data, or just its own silo?"

Audit your data sharing. Look at every vendor in your stack. How easily can you get data out? How well do they integrate with other systems? If a vendor is building a moat around your data, that's a red flag.

Prioritize the data layer. Before you add another AI tool, ask whether your firm has a unified data foundation. If not, that's the first investment — not the sixth AI subscription.

Think about orchestration. The future isn't one AI to rule them all. It's the ability to orchestrate multiple AI capabilities — the best planning AI, the best CRM AI, the best portfolio analysis — on top of shared, clean data. That requires a data infrastructure that connects everything.

At Milemarker, this is what we spend every day building. Our Data Engine connects 130+ WealthTech platforms into a single unified data layer. Navigator runs AI on top of that connected foundation. Not because any one tool's AI is bad — but because AI on unified data is categorically different from AI on fragmented data.

The AI swivel chair is a symptom. The disease is disconnected data. Fix the data, and the AI problem solves itself.

This article is based on the Next Mile podcast episode "Relentless, Relevant, and Ready: Orion Ascent Recap with Jessica Perez." Listen to the full conversation for more on what we heard at Orion Ascent and where AI in wealth management is headed.

Ready to move past the AI swivel chair? Book a strategy call to see what unified data looks like for your firm.