The largest wealth transfer in history is already underway, with more than $84 trillion set to pass from Baby Boomers to younger generations by 2045.
Yet, studies show that 81% of heirs plan to switch advisors after inheriting wealth.
For RIAs, this is a looming retention crisis.
Advisors are gaining younger clients. And losing them just as quickly.
Unless firms evolve their approach to serving this new generation, they risk watching billions in assets walk out the door.
Relationships Alone Won’t Save Retention
For decades, wealth management firms leaned heavily on relationship-building: dinners, personal calls, even invitations to family events.
While these efforts matter, they don’t scale.
They rarely survive succession events, and they can’t meet the expectations of clients raised in a digital-first world.
Retention isn’t solely based on relationships anymore. It’s an operational problem your firm has to solve. Without systems that ensure consistency, advisors fall back on one-off emails, delayed reports, and rework that erodes trust.
For younger investors, that kind of experience is a dealbreaker.
How Advisors Think About Their Current Clients
For most RIAs, the bulk of assets under management still sit with Baby Boomers and Gen X.
These groups shaped the norms of today’s client experience (norms that worked well for decades, but don’t map neatly to what’s coming next).
Baby Boomers (born ~1946–1964):
- Built wealth through pensions, real estate, and steady market growth.
- Value loyalty and trust above all, with many working with the same advisor for decades.
- Comfortable with quarterly reviews, paper statements, and in-person meetings.
- Advisors often serve as a family confidant, not just a financial partner.
- Patience is high (they’ll tolerate a late report or a slower process) as long as the relationship feels solid.
Gen X (born ~1965–1980):
- More self-reliant and skeptical than Boomers (shaped by events like the dot-com bubble and early recessions).
- First generation to adopt digital banking and email but don’t demand frictionless tech.
- Value efficiency and expertise that saves them time, helping them juggle competing demands (careers, kids, and aging parents).
- Comfortable with quarterly reviews or semi-regular updates, as long as the advice feels relevant.
- More price-sensitive than Boomers, but still willing to pay for trust and results.
Millennials (born ~1981–1996):
- Now entering peak earning and wealth-building years.
- Shaped by the 2008 financial crisis (wary of financial institutions, highly value transparency and control).
- Balancing family responsibilities, mortgages, and career growth, which means they often look for practical planning support alongside investment advice.
- Strong interest in ESG and sustainable investing, but generally weigh values against long-term returns.
- Expect collaboration with advisors: they want a partner, not just a quarterly update.
Gen Z (born ~1997–2012):
- The first true digital natives, never known a world without smartphones, apps, and instant information.
- Rewired expectations with shorter attention spans and zero tolerance for friction. If an app loads slowly, a dashboard isn’t intuitive, or a workflow feels clunky, they bounce.
- Financially more experimental and self-directed: crypto, options trading, and alternative assets are already common in their portfolios.
- Influence comes heavily from online communities (TikTok, Reddit, YouTube); advisors aren’t their first source of information.
- They demand immediacy: real-time data, always-on updates, and seamless user experiences that mirror the apps they use.
Comparing Investment Preferences Across Generations
Boomers and Gen X met the market through an advisor and will tolerate some friction if guidance is steady and clear.
Millennials and Gen Z already have access; they expect you to filter noise, explain what matters, and move fast through clean digital channels.
What this means for your model:
- Cadence: predictable touch, with light monthly updates that say one clear thing.
- Data: live or near live. No prepping off stale numbers.
- Access: self-serve portals plus quick replies by chat, text, or email.
- Transparency: show fees, status, and trade-offs in plain language.
- Records: one household record that every workflow pulls from.
That is the bar.
Next, we show the operating playbook that hits it.
What Younger Clients Expect from Their Wealth Advisors
Armed with different life experiences and shaped by digital culture, younger investors expect more from advisors than the status quo.
Their expectations fall into a few clear patterns:
- Digital-first experiences. Millennials may tolerate outdated client portals. Gen Z won’t. Both groups expect fast onboarding, seamless context across platforms, and real-time updates delivered in the digital formats they already use.
- Consistency over flash. Replace glossy, silent quarterly PDFs with a predictable monthly update in plain language tied to goals. Millennials want transparency on what changed and why. Gen Z expects immediate status and quick responses.
- Clarity and accessibility. They don’t want jargon or complex graphs buried in static reports. They want simple takeaways they can check on demand, in intuitive formats.
- Values-driven investing. 99% of Gen Z and 97% of Millennials express interest in sustainable investing. Many also diversify into crypto and real estate. For Millennials, ESG integration signals alignment with values. For Gen Z, it’s a baseline expectation.
- Support for self-directed complexity. Many younger investors already hold crypto, ESG screens, or options. Their portfolios are complex. Boilerplate models don’t meet their needs. Advisors must provide context instead of templates.
In short, the client experience now matters as much as, if not more than, performance.
The Operational Playbook for Retaining Younger Clients
You don’t need to reinvent your entire business model to adapt to younger clients.
However, you must have an operational structure that supports how you deliver updates, track households, and communicate across generations.
That starts with the platform you build on.
Step 1: Anchor the Advisory in a Reliable WealthTech Platform
- If your core platform can’t reconcile data across custodians, normalize feeds, or deliver reports consistently, no amount of manual effort will close the gap.
- A modern wealthtech stack should unify household views, automate reporting workflows, and provide clients with intuitive access points.
- The platform should handle compliance seamlessly in the background, allowing advisors to focus on relationships and context, not chasing exceptions.
Step 2: Capture and Structure the Household Record
- Once the platform is in place, use it to capture information about every stakeholder, including their role in decision-making and preferred communication methods.
- Link this record to accounts, reporting, and workflows so context isn’t lost when advisors or household heads change.
Step 3: Maintain Household-Level Data Quality
- Surface data-feed exceptions before updates reach clients.
- Normalize custodian and held-away feeds to reduce manual fixes and ensure consistency.
Step 4: Establish a Consistent Update Cadence
- Create predictable reporting rhythms that include performance, exposure, balances, and goal tracking.
- Tie each update to one clear takeaway, in plain language.
Step 5: Enable Frictionless Stakeholder Access
- Give households secure, role-based access to approved information in a centralized, branded portal.
Step 6: Keep Compliance Built Into Every Workflow
- Embed approval queues and audit trails into processes so oversight doesn’t slow down delivery.
Future-Proofing the Client Experience of Younger Generations
The firms that thrive in the next era of wealth management will be the ones that remove operational friction, engage households as a whole, and deliver clarity at every touchpoint.
The wealth transfer is a test and an opportunity.
Advisors who adapt will retain and grow their households for decades. Those who don’t will watch the next generation find investors who do.