Racing to Capture the Transfer: How Financial Platforms Are Positioning for the Next Generation of Investors

Trillions of dollars are set to change hands over the next several decades, moving from older generations to Millennials and Gen Z, in what many are calling America’s next great wealth transfer. For financial services firms, this demographic shift represents a pivotal opportunity. Successful platforms will be those that have cultivated strong relationships with the next generation of investors, positioning themselves to manage most of that wealth as it shifts hands. Firms that fail to establish solid connections with young investors are likely to see that wealth slip out the door.

Corporate Insight’s consulting team recently completed an in-depth landscape analysis of how traditional brokerages, fintechs, and emerging AI-driven apps are building their mobile experiences to attract and retain younger investors during this critical transition period.

The Evaluated Landscape

Our team assessed nine platforms across three distinct categories:

• Established brokerages
• Consumer-focused fintechs
• New wave AI-powered apps

For each platform, we evaluated mobile app experiences using real, behind-the-login customer accounts, with a focus on four core capability areas:

1. Goal planning tools
2. Family and partner account linking
3. Inheritance and wealth transfer features
4. AI-driven personalization

Traditional Firms: Holding the Line, but Not Excelling

The major players in our coverage set are the large, well-known brokerages with established retail client bases. These firms typically provide reliable yet undistinguished planning experiences. Goal tracking and basic net worth tools are present, but advanced capabilities are often locked behind specific account types, limiting their accessibility to younger investors who may not yet qualify or have decided against premium-tier products.

For example, one firm’s most sophisticated planning features, including tools that allow clients to assign financial goals to specific individuals in a family, are only available to clients with managed or joint accounts. Another firm restricts wealth transfer forecasting to retirement account holders, leaving out a wide group of general investing clients. These friction points may alienate younger investors who could feel turned off by what they see as gate-kept experiences.

That said, traditional firms are not without their strengths. One standout in this category offered an exceptionally rich goal planning experience, which included contextual guidance, lifetime goal visualization, and specific tools tailored to different goal types, ranging from housing to travel.

Fintechs: Closer to Where Younger Investors Are

The fintech platforms in our coverage set generally outpaced their traditional competitors in terms of the breadth and accessibility of planning tools. Goal planning is a core component of several of these apps, rather than a secondary feature as identified in many traditional brokerage apps. One platform in particular structures its entire investment account model around goals, letting clients fund each goal as though it were a separate account with its own progress tracker and automation settings.

The fintechs also showed more creativity in addressing generational concerns. One platform stood out for its youth-specific features, including curated short-form financial education content, alongside family investment accounts that are managed alongside the primary account. Another fintech offered one of the most sophisticated partner-linking experiences in the coverage set, allowing clients to create shared financial views and collaborative goal planning with a partner or spouse.

However, even the best fintech experiences occasionally fell short. Several firms prevented clients from naming themselves as the beneficiary of an education savings goal, which could pose as a limitation for younger investors saving for their own graduate education.

AI-Driven Apps: Redefining Personalization and Setting a New Bar

The most differentiated experiences we observed came from newer, AI-native platforms that have built personalization into the foundation of their products. While these apps may not yet be household names, they offer strong financial planning inspiration for incumbents and fintechs alike.

One platform stood out for its AI integration throughout the planning experience. Rather than offering a siloed chatbot, it embeds AI touchpoints directly within each planning tool. Clients can:

• Request an AI-generated summary of their portfolio
• Compare financial scenarios through a conversational interface
• Ask detailed planning questions in context

Additionally, the app allows clients to write about their goals, life situations, and family circumstances in plain language, which the app’s AI then uses to personalize its responses. This differentiated approach may signal where younger investors’ expectations may be heading when it comes to AI in financial services.

A second AI-driven app offers similarly robust capabilities:

• Scenario-based forecasting with multiple simultaneous projections
• Net worth planning that integrates home values via third-party appraisal services and even vehicle valuations
• Family account linking flow that gives invited partners full platform access and their own login

The Remaining Gap: Inheritance Planning

Perhaps most surprisingly, our analysis found that despite the scale and urgency of the great wealth transfer, not a single firm in our coverage set offers a true inheritance planning tool. Several platforms allow clients to enter an expected windfall, such as a parental gift, a bonus, or an inheritance, into their financial planning models. However, these are point-in-time entries, not true planning tools. No firm in the coverage set offers a tool for younger investors to say: “I plan to inherit a meaningful sum at an uncertain date and need help planning around that.” That capability does not exist at a large scale in the market today.

Key Takeaways for Financial Services Leaders

Our analysis surfaced four strategic priorities for firms seeking to position their digital platforms for the wealth transfer moment:

1. Make planning tools accessible: Gating advanced features behind premium accounts or specific product tiers undermines younger investor engagement. The planning experience should be a gateway to deeper relationships.

2. Build for the family unit, not just the individual: The best experiences in our coverage set enable collaborative financial planning, including shared views, partner logins, and family account linking. Wealth transfer is, by definition, a family event.

3. Invest in AI-driven personalization thoughtfully: Our coverage set’s AI-native apps demonstrate that personalization can be achieved without a complex data infrastructure. While traditional firms often have the data advantage, they typically lack strong AI execution in the user experience.

4. Own the inheritance planning opportunity. The lack of a comprehensive wealth transfer planning tool that covers the full spectrum means that the company that develops it first will gain a strong incentive to become the primary platform for both wealth creators and recipients.

Although the great wealth transfer may seem like a distant event, it is happening now. Firms that proactively invest in thoughtful strategies and purpose-built planning tools for younger investors will be best positioned as assets continue to shift across generations. At Corporate Insight, we help financial services firms turn shifts like this into strategy, translating competitive insight into actionable roadmaps designed to win the next generation. Learn more about our custom research solutions.