FutureProof 2025: My Top 5 Takeaways (and Hot Takes)
I attended my first FutureProof this year. Considering the hype around the Huntington Beach festival since it launched a few years ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I’d be getting sunshine, bright colors, and thousands of people who care about wealth management.
Frankly, I didn’t get to hear as much content as I would have liked, but I met hundreds of new friends, and learned a lot. I validated that advisors know their clients, often deeply. The challenge is turning that knowledge into consistent action and growth. Some clients open up and change course. Others remain stuck. Some advisors connect effortlessly. Others struggle to get past surface conversations.
Across firms, data is fragmented, making it hard to scale consistency, and impossible to find meaningful value from AI tools. The opportunity isn’t knowing clients better. It’s translating insight into behavior, growth, and trust that endures.
At the end of each day, I jotted down a few takeaways.
But first! We have a couple exciting new items we put together this week that I have to share:
Click here to get 50% off onboarding – this was a FutureProof offer that we decided to extend to everyone for the month of September.
Okay – moving on to my FutureProof takeaways:
Takeaway #1: Leaders of some of the largest advisory firms in the country are painfully aware of advisor complacency
Chatting with advisors all day, I remembered something that Larry Fink always used to say at BlackRock: complacency is the enemy. Every advisor I spoke with is committed to serving clients well. Still, leaders of these firms are focused on complacency, which makes sense when you sit down and listen to them lay out what they’re seeing:
Aging advisors with aging clients focused more on decumulation than growth. Nearly 40% of advisors are expected to retire in the next 10 years, and 82% of clients are over 50.
As firms grow, they create processes to help standardize the services they provide. For advisors, the more processes injected into workflows, the less excitement advisors feel about their work. In other words, processes and morale have an inverse relationship.
Larger firms are seeing dramatic inconsistencies in their advisors:
How committed they are to financial planning
How they adopt a growth mindset vs a lifestyle business mindset
How interested they are in behavioral finance and emotions
How willing they are to change behavior, and how they talk about their business
Takeaway #2: The top concerns for growing RIAs are differentiation, faster organic & inorganic growth, better onboarding, and scalable, consistent process
Growing RIAs know exactly what they’re solving for to win in the market.
What sets us apart?
How can we find faster organic growth?
Who should we recruit, in alignment with our core values?
How can we make our client experience engaging?
How can we make our data more valuable and consistent?
Every advisor I talked to asked at least two of these questions during our conversation. Answering these five questions is clearly the key to unlocking unlimited growth.
(Knomee can help you answer all five! Click here to see it for yourself.)
Takeaway #3: Vibe-coded tech is easy to spot (and much of it looks like you could make it in one night)
Some of these AI tools seem like they took a few hours and a hundred or so prompts to create.
Why not just create your own version?
Not only that, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rash of security issues from some of these newer tools as we’ve seen in other vibe-coded tools like last month’s data breach at the dating app Tea.
Takeaway #4: Niched advisors in their 40s with young clients are the most sought-after recruiting prize right now
Inorganic growth is still one of the top growth methods, and acquiring firms have their sights set on mid-career, established advisors who have proven themselves in their niche. The firms courting these advisors are seeing good organic growth – I heard 10% being thrown around quite a bit, which is a great number for bigger firms!
Really, it comes down to this: Successful, growing firms are seeking successful, growing advisors.
Takeaway #5: Every conference should be outdoors in California in September
Okay, maybe this one isn’t realistic, but the weather this time of year is just perfect, as long as you wear a hat and sunscreen (big mistake not to reapply!!). The ocean backdrop puts everyone in a different mood. It’s hard to get excited about upcoming conferences in Vegas where recycled air, stale cigarette smoke, and slot machine noise will dominate the setting.
Hanging out with new and old friends is the best I can ask for at any conference, and by that measure, Future Proof delivered.
In honor of FutureProof, we have a special deal available for the month of September only: Sign up for Knomee and get 50% off of your onboarding fee. Click here to sign up!
