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Tamarac today already provides "tons of scale" and allows the firm to screen its client portfolios daily for tax-loss harvest- ing, rebalancing and asset location moves. "With a couple of clicks, we can see if there are opportunities," Littman says. Pure primarily uses ETFs to invest in different asset classes. It has meetings ev- ery few months with Tamarac's product design team, and when the team asked what it could do to improve service qual- ity, Littman had only one suggestion— that it make the transition from Tamarac to Portfolio Center, another Envestnet product acquired from Schwab in 2019, more seamless. Yet he doesn't see a screaming need for Envestnet to enter the custody business. Pure splits most of its roughly $9 billion in assets between Schwab and Fidelity, and Littman says, "We prefer to stick with the players who are really good at their individual services." Given the amount of private and pub- lic capital going into artificial intelligence today, fintech executives are swarming advisors' offices probing their operational needs in the hope of finding a silver bul- let or magic solution. Industry consultant and former Orion executive Jud Mack- rill thinks that in recent years private fin- tech investors have asserted their control of companies, sometimes at the expense of advisors. "In the AI age, that needs to change," he says. ere are also certain roadblocks getting advisors to switch products or integrate different technologies. Envest- net's financial planning soware, Mon- eyGuidePro, is considered an industry leader, as its $500 million acquisition price would attest. But if a major advi- sory firm has spent a decade working with the product's leading competitor, and Fidelity own the cash," Bullis says. But they'll have to respond to new fintech players anyway. What this all means for Envestnet re- mains to be seen. It has skillfully diversi- fied well beyond its original client base of independent broker-dealers into the faster- growing RIA world, and if it wants to ex- pand its penetration of the advisor universe, the RIA space is the place to do it for now. at means whatever it does, Envestnet is likely to stick with "a multi-custodial strategy," in Todd's words. e company remains "agnostic to who you want to work with, and that's an important part of who we are." When it comes to integration, the views of fintech leaders differ. "If you talk to 100 RIAs about what technology they want, you will get 100 different ideas," says one executive, adding many advisor ideas about merging soware programs are impractical. "ere is a growing demand for having a more integrated system that requires less manual intervention," says Michael Lane, executive vice president and head of asset management at SEI, which provides cus- tody services to 10 of the nation's largest banks and which is also looking to expand in the RIA world. at desire to meld sys- tems is not universal, though, and many advisors "don't want to give up their CRM or financial planning soware," he adds. Take Pure Financial, which was already happy with its Tamarac portfolio man- agement soware, which it has used since 2008—and which Envestnet acquired in 2012. According to Ben Littman, one of Pure's founding partners and its first chief investment officer, a big part of his firm's value proposition is that it offers mass af- fluent clients a tax overlay program once available only to the ultra-affluent. Fidelity-owned eMoney, such a firm is unlikely to switch programs because it has spent years getting not only its advi- sors but also its thousands of clients ac- climated to the system. is doesn't mean there won't be op- portunities for the next generation of ad- visors and their clients. "MoneyGuide is a super important part of our portfolio," Todd says. "It's a leading planning tool in and of its own right. And when our cus- tomers talk to us, one of the areas where they would like us to integrate more—and where we would like to integrate more on their behalf—is making planning a more natural part of the entire portfolio man- agement process." For Todd, the near-term opportunity for Envestnet appears to be AI enhance- ments. With its vast wealth of advisor and client data, it likely has a head start over many competitors. "We're big believers that AI is as transformative a technolo- gy as it's purported to be," he says. "We're super focused on the advisor experience. We believe that AI, machine learning and other related technologies are going to al- low advisors to be more efficient in the future, allow them to focus more on their relationships with their customers." Most people who meet Todd quickly observe that he is gracious and has excep- tional listening skills. ese traits were on display at Envestnet's Elevate conference, when he paid a moving tribute to his pre- decessors, Bergman and Crager, accord- ing to attendees. ese personal qualities will serve him well as he tries to sort through Envestnet's portfolio and prioritize services. But noth- ing is guaranteed. How the company de- velops the next generation of AI-enhanced services will be key in determining how suc- cessful he is over the next 18 months. Opinions and estimates contained in this article are subject to change without notice, as are statements of financial market trends, which are based on current market conditions. This article originally appeared on Financial Advisor magazine's website on June 2025. All rights reserved. Charter Financial Publishing Network, Inc. 2594726 Disclosure: The information, analysis, and opinions expressed herein are for general information only. Nothing contained in this article is intended to constitute legal, tax, securities, or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Envestnet and its representatives do not render tax, accounting or legal advice. Taxpayers should always seek advice based on their own particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

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