The state of technology and estate planning for financial advisors: Q1 2026

What do financial advisors really think about technology and estate planning

We released our Q1 2026 Quarterly report, built on real industry research, advisor survey data, and market analytics. From hundreds of sources, we selected the most rigorous studies available. 

We work with financial advisors, operate a licensed attorney network across the states, and have built the estate planning platform that connects them. That position is what grounds this report in practice, not just research. 

Estate planning has always started the same way. An advisor refers a client to an attorney and manages everything in between. The system survives because the legal expertise had to come from the right source. Advisors need attorneys for the law. Attorneys rely on advisors for clients. For decades, the referral was the only bridge between those two separate expertises. That experience shapes our report.

Where does estate planning software fit between financial advisors, attorneys, and clients

Our estate planning software sits at the point where an advisor’s client relationship meets an attorney’s legal work. It doesn’t replace the attorney. It replaces the coordination that has always fallen on the advisor. Scheduling meetings that they don’t run. Following up on documents they didn’t prepare. Translating between an attorney and their client that they’ve spent years getting to know. None of that is financial advice.  

There are many moving parts to how advisors, attorneys, and clients work together. The research reveals where technology closes the gap by removing extra steps and reducing wasted time. Clients notice. And what they notice shapes whether they stay.

What are the current market trends shaping how financial advisors approach technology and estate planning

Technology has become central to how financial advisors compete, retain clients, and deliver the services clients are asking for. Estate planning sits in the middle of that shift in ways the industry is only beginning to understand. 

Client expectations around digital access are changing. The great wealth transfer is creating greater demand that the traditional referral model was never built to handle. And the data around how technology shapes the advisor-client relationship tells a story worth understanding. 

Technology is no longer a preference for advisors or their clients. It determines outcomes. 

An advisor’s time belongs with clients, not spent figuring out where technology fits in their practice. Because we sit at the intersection of estate planning and technology, we put it into a report built for how advisors think and work.

How does technology improve the financial advisor experience

Our Q1 report takes hundreds of sources from across the industry and translates them into five clear insights that advisors can use in their practice today. Each one started as a pattern across the research and ended as a specific, data-backed finding about what advisors are navigating at the intersection of technology and estate planning. The research reflects what is happening in the industry right now. Unlike most research, we considered what it looks like in an advisor's office and gave them a clear place to start.

Our Technology and Estate Planning Quarter 1 Report is available now.