What Two 2026 Surveys Reveal About Where Wealthtech Is Heading

There’s no shortage of opinions about where wealthtech is headed.

Every platform claims to be more connected. Every roadmap promises more intelligence. Every new feature seems designed to signal progress. But when you strip away the noise, two better questions remain: what are advisors actually asking for, and where is the market actually placing trust?

That’s where this year’s Orion’s Advisor Wealthtech Survey and the 2026 T3 Software Survey become especially useful together.

They do different jobs. Orion’s survey helps show what advisors are trying to solve right now. T3 shows where advisors are actually using and considering technology across the competitive landscape. Read side by side, they point to the same broader shift: firms aren’t just looking for more tools. They’re looking for technology that helps create more capacity, less friction, and a stronger operating foundation.

What Advisors Say They Need Now

Orion’s 2026 Advisor Wealthtech Survey makes one thing very clear: advisory firms are still focused on getting more from the technology they already have.

When asked about their top strategic priorities for 2026, 61% of advisors said optimizing technology integration and data use across the firm was a top focus. Right behind it, 60% said they were focused on using AI and automation to improve efficiency and personalization. Advisors also ranked integrated technology, streamlined workflows and process optimization, and AI and automation tools as the top three force multipliers for growth and success.¹

That matters because it shows the market isn’t just chasing innovation for innovation’s sake. Firms are trying to create leverage. They want technology that helps them reduce manual work, connect data more effectively, and make the business easier to run as expectations keep rising.

The pain points reinforce that story. Advisors identified disconnected systems that don’t talk to each other as their top technology pain point, followed by insufficient training and rising costs that don’t match perceived value. And when asked how technology could most effectively “supercharge” their business, the top response by far was streamlining operations and reducing manual work. Giving advisors more time to focus on clients came next.

That’s an important signal. The pressure isn’t just to modernize. It’s to make technology genuinely useful.

What the T3 Survey Adds to the Picture

If Orion’s survey shows what advisors want, T3 helps show where the market is putting weight behind those needs.

The 2026 T3 Software Survey, based on nearly 3,000 usable responses, remains one of the clearest views into advisor software usage and consideration across the industry.

This year’s results reinforce that firms are paying attention to categories tied closely to operational scale and connected execution.

• In portfolio management and reporting, Orion led the category with 18.62% market share, and the report notes that Orion “seems to have pulled away from the pack as the market share leader.”
• In all-in-one software, T3 describes the market as a “two-platform race for market share leadership” between first-place Orion and second-place Advyzon, with Orion also near the top of the consideration list.
• In trading and rebalancing, Orion ranked just behind iRebal’s free version, and T3 notes that the longtime leader is “no longer comfortably ahead of Orion’s market share.”
• And in CRM, Redtail returned to what the report describes as “near 50% market share,” finishing at 42.53% and reestablishing a wide lead in one of the most central categories in advisor tech.²

Taken together, those results matter for a simple reason: they suggest Orion and Redtail are showing up in the parts of the stack most tied to the problems advisors are still trying to solve.

Why This Alignment Matters

It’s one thing for a firm to say it wants more integration, more workflow efficiency, and more practical use of AI.

It’s another thing for the market to reward providers that show up in portfolio management, trading, all-in-one platform capabilities, and CRM at the same time.

That’s what makes the combination of these surveys so useful.

The Wealthtech Survey highlights the direction of advisor demand. T3 adds external validation that the categories supporting those priorities are becoming more strategically important, and that Orion has meaningful presence across them.

That doesn’t mean every firm should buy the same way or build the same stack. But it does seem to show that the center of gravity in wealthtech evaluation is shifting. Firms are moving beyond isolated feature comparisons and asking bigger questions about fit, workflow, and operating capacity.

Portfolio Accounting Is a Particularly Important Signal

One of the clearest takeaways when reviewing the combined set of results is the importance of a firm's operational foundation.

Portfolio accounting doesn’t always get the same attention as more visible parts of the advisor experience, but it plays an outsized role in how firms function. It shapes reporting confidence, workflow consistency, billing logic, reconciliation, and day-to-day visibility across the business.

That’s part of what makes Orion’s position in the T3 portfolio management and reporting category so meaningful. Leadership in that category suggests more than awareness. It suggests trust in one of the systems firms rely on most heavily to run the business.

The Orion survey adds another layer here. Orion clients reported 11.5% organic growth in 2025, compared with 8.3% for non-Orion firms, a 39% higher growth rate. Orion advisors also reported higher average tech stack utilization and slightly higher tech integration than non-Orion advisors.³

That doesn’t prove technology alone drives growth. But it does support a broader point: firms that make better use of connected technology may be better positioned to translate that investment into operating leverage.

The Bigger Message for Firms Evaluating Tech

The strongest insight from these surveys isn’t that one vendor ranked well or one study surfaced a familiar pain point.

It’s that two different lenses are pointing to the same conclusion.

Advisors want more leverage from their technology. They want systems that work together more cleanly, reduce manual effort, support better decisions, and create more room for client-facing work. And the market is placing meaningful trust in providers that show up in those connected, business-critical categories.

That’s the real signal in 2026.

The firms best positioned for what comes next likely won’t be the ones simply adding more software. They’ll be the ones making smarter decisions about the technology foundation underneath the business — especially in the systems that shape reporting, workflows, data confidence, and scale.