Wealth management technology consultancy The Oasis Group on Tuesday announced the release of a proprietary research report on estate planning technology in wealth management.
The report, 2026 Peaks for Estate Planning Platforms, gives financial advisory firms, family offices and broker-dealers (BDs) a framework for evaluating platforms and aligning technology decisions with their business models, client complexity and growth strategies, according to The Oasis Group.
The firm said the research reflects a “fundamental shift” in how estate planning is delivered and perceived across the sector, from a fragmented, document-heavy process usually outsourced to attorneys to a digitally enabled, advisor-led capability.
As a result, advisory and BD firms are leveraging modern platforms to grow assets, increase the sophistication of their advice and deepen client relationships, said The Oasis Group.
“Estate planning has moved from a peripheral service to a central pillar of holistic wealth management,” John O’Connell, CEO of The Oasis Group, said in the press release. “The firms that embrace modern platforms are transforming how they engage clients and differentiate in a competitive market.”
“The firms that embrace modern platforms are transforming how they engage clients and differentiate in a competitive market.” — John O’Connell, CEO, The Oasis Group
Key Trends In Estate Planning Technology
Trends shaping the estate planning technology market, according to the report, include a shift to advisor-led, technology-enabled workflows in which platforms are helping advisors take greater ownership of estate planning, reducing their reliance on external providers while improving consistency and scalability.
Advisory and BD firms are also increasingly using estate planning to drive client acquisition, deepen relationships and expand wallet share, the firm said. There has also been an integration with the broader wealthtech stack in which solutions are developed to connect with CRM systems, financial planning tools and portfolio platforms, creating a more unified advisory ecosystem, according to the report.
New capabilities including AI-driven insights, data extraction and document ingestion are also reducing manual effort and enhancing advisor productivity, the report said.
Platforms are also creating clearer, more interactive representations of estate structures, which the firm said helps clients better understand complex planning strategies.
The report also stresses that no single platform is universally optimal. Rather, the right solution depends on factors including firm size, client demographics, planning complexity and operational priorities, according to the report.
‘Peaks’ Framework
The report uses the firm’s “Peaks” framework to categorize platforms based on their capabilities and ability to execute, with three categories: Summiteers (platforms with comprehensive capabilities and strong execution), mountaineers (strong, competitive solutions that can be developed further) and climbers (foundational tools with more limited feature breadth or scalability).
Instead of identifying one “winner,” the framework was created to help firms identify the best-fit solution based on their specific needs, according to The Oasis Group.
The firms Luminary, Vanilla and Wealth.com were recognized in the report as Summiteers; fpAlpha and EncorEstate Plans were categorized as Mountaineers; and eMoney and MoneyGuide Wealth Studios were identified as Climbers.
“I feel that one of the significant findings from the report is the breadth of estate planning capability offered by the Summiteers in our research,” O’Connell told Wealth Solutions Report by email on Wednesday.
He said, “Many of the leading firms offer complex financial modeling on estate decision and compelling visual representation of estates that are excellent for client presentations. These can rapidly reduce the amount of time spent by operations teams within wealth management firms in generating these documents for clients.”
The report said, “Readers of this research should not mistake a Summiteer as a default choice in their buying decision. Summiteers may be more cautious in adopting the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, providing personalized service to a smaller firm, or have difficulty scaling to an enterprise firm.”
The Oasis Group “created the report to address one of my largest concerns for advisors which is that many clients want estate planning services and traditionally advisors have referred that business away,” O’Connell also told WSR.
“It is difficult to be the financial quarterback for your client if you are handing off a key component of their wealth transfer.” — John O’Connell, CEO, The Oasis Group
He added, “It is difficult to be the financial quarterback for your client if you are handing off a key component of their wealth transfer. Advisors should understand that there are different engagement models from the service providers. For example, some of the service providers supply in house legal support and some have built a network of attorneys. They bring this to bear for the advisor so that they can offer estate planning solutions to their clients.
For the report, The Oasis Group said it assessed each product’s ability to capture, visualize, model and operationalize estate plans for advisory firms, and findings were drawn from live product demonstrations, hands-on platform reviews, vendor materials, client reference discussions and The Oasis Group’s previous implementation experience.
Jeff Berman, Contributing Editor and Reporter at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jeff.berman@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
