Inside WealthTech – from the technology powering the advisor’s stack to the WealthTech companies defining the industry, we deliver the stories and strategies behind smarter advice. Each episode features candid conversations with industry leaders about the technologies, ideas, and partnerships transforming the way advisors serve clients, grow their practices, and redefine financial outcomes.
In this episode of Inside WealthTech, Envestnet’s Aaron Bauer, Head of Custodian Strategy, and Blake Wood, Head of Strategic Partnerships, sit down with Caleb Eplett, Chief Product Officer at YCharts. Together, they explore how Envestnet and partners like YCharts reduce friction in research and proposal workflows, what it takes to build technology advisors actually use, how AI is changing the research landscape, and why the advisor’s human touch remains the competitive advantage.
Read on for key takeaways, or watch the full episode here.
Saying no to feature bloat, and yes to connected workflows
The conversation kicked off by discussing an all-too-common issue in wealthtech: feature bloat. Feature bloat often happens when the sales team drives the road map, and every feature becomes a ‘must-have’ feature and a potential game changer.
“If you fall into this trap, you tend to end up with a disorganized set of features,” says Eplett. “You start building things because someone needs it, without thinking about how it’s going to connect.”
When workflows connect, technology like Envestnet becomes an extension of the advisor’s judgment, not an obstacle to it.
YCharts began as a point solution with a vision of democratizing data, gradually expanding their role in supporting advisor research and proposal generation. As they grew, the emphasis shifted from adding features to ensuring that each capability fit clearly within an advisor’s workflow and decision-making process. Ultimately, the firm needed a clear strategy around what to build, and what to leave out.
“Whether we’re building a new feature or a new data set, we ask how it fits into a workflow we’re looking to support.”
Focusing on workflows became the key for ensuring every feature served a purpose and worked together to make advisors more efficient.
As Eplett explains, feature bloat is often more of a UX problem than a feature problem.
"Our approach is always to do things right instead of fast,” says Eplett. “If you spend a little more time thinking about the UX implications and how that experience is going to be for the user, you can move fast and avoid that feeling of feature bloat – even if you have a lot of features and data in different areas.”
From insights to investment proposals
While product and development teams deal with feature bloat, advisors face an equally pressing challenge: the demand to deliver storytelling proposals and differentiated insights to their clients and prospects.
Many firms are clamoring for new proposal generation software and for proposals that can be used firm-wide.
“Everybody's talking about how they need a new proposal generation engine, or they need to have the same proposals used firm-wide, and that proposal needs to capture everything,” says Eplett. “But then you go sit down with any advisor, and a proposal is different for each one.”
Effective proposals can’t be one-size-fits-all, because they need to reflect what the advisor is discussing with a prospect or client in that moment in time – whether it’s investment recommendations, or the client’s financial plan, or another aspect of their financial life.
“You can have that personalized advice without the workload that comes with preparing something new and custom for every single conversation.”
This is where platform connection matters. When research outputs flow cleanly into the broader advisor workflow, advisors can move from insights to next steps faster. Envestnet’s role is to help make that transition seamless so the advisor stays focused on the client, not on stitching tools together.
Built from experience
As Eplett evolved in his career from an advisor, to a trader, to a product builder, he experienced several ‘aha’ moments that continue to influence how he thinks about building for financial professionals today.
As an advisor, he experienced the tension between scale and personalization firsthand. While he agrees having a models-based practice, standardizing fund selections, and streamlining workflows makes sense in theory, the moment you sit down with a real client, the playbook often goes out the window.
That’s because every client has a concentrated position, a unique family situation, or a need that doesn’t fit the template – so technology needs to be able to adapt to these diverse needs.
“The key is building technology that captures scale and efficiencies, but still allows you to be dynamic and responsive to the next client or prospect in the door.”
As a trader, the aha moment was tied to data. Eplett saw how traders often think that digesting all the data they have access to will lead to the perfect trade or the right solution – but it often leads to analysis paralysis instead.
That same risk shows up in wealth management when advisors have data everywhere but insight nowhere. The goal is not more inputs. The goal is confident decisions and better client conversations.
Eplett carried this lesson directly into product development. Instead of raw data, he saw that advisors really needed a quick way to gain clear insights. The focus at YCharts was to bridge the gap.
AI reshaping the advisor-client relationship
When asked about the future of research platforms and what will be table stakes for advisors in the next five years, Eplett didn't hesitate, though he noted that in today's environment, five years has basically become five months.
“Where advisors differentiate from AI is by having better services, more differentiated advice, real experience, and the personalized touch.”
Eplett points to meeting assistant and note-taking tools as one area where AI adoption is already gaining real traction — automating the capture of meeting notes, surfacing key decisions, and handling compliance documentation. What excites him most though, is where that information flows next: into platforms like Envestnet and YCharts. When captured insights flow into connected workflows, they can immediately inform planning updates, portfolio proposals, and client follow-ups. That is the value of an integrated platform approach.
In the near future, Eplett sees AI making portfolio creation faster and more efficient. But he believes an even more significant shift will occur in the direct-to-consumer model, where AI-powered tools will increasingly compete for the same clients advisors serve.
This shift is already showing up in client conversations. “If you recommend a portfolio,” says Eplett, “there's a good chance that that prospect or client is going to upload that into GPT and say, is this a good portfolio?”
Advisors need to be ready for these conversations, and have the tools on hand to defend their recommendations.
Rather than viewing this scenario as a threat, Eplett sees it as an opportunity.
By combining the high IQ and insights that come from platforms like YCharts and Envestnet with the EQ that comes from knowing their clients deeply, advisors can have the best of what technology offers with what only they can provide.
When a client comes in armed with AI-generated feedback, an advisor can lean in – asking questions, digging deeper, and then demonstrating something no algorithm can replicate: the human connection at the heart of great advice.
Rapid-fire reflections
As part of Inside WealthTech’s speed round, Eplett offers his quick takes on topics reshaping wealth management.
- Crypto in portfolios: “Here to stay.” While there may be less cryptocurrencies, Eplett believes ETFs and similar products will find a lasting place in client portfolios.
- Best data visualization tool: “YCharts.”
- AI and portfolios: “There will be automated processes, but as soon as you need something that’s a little different than what the AI engine spits out, we’ll need to craft it for you.”
- Biggest mistake advisors make with analytics: “Analysis paralysis.”
- What matters more to clients – performance or personalization: “Can’t have one without the other.”
Across his answers, a consistent theme emerged: Technology should serve the advisor, not the other way around. As Eplett puts it, “Analytics give you information. That information needs to drive insights. And those insights need to be making an impact for your clients.”
Stay Inside WealthTech
Watch the full episode of Inside WealthTech featuring Caleb Eplett to hear more about how YCharts is helping advisors turn data into decisions and stay ahead in an AI-driven landscape.
And make sure to follow on LinkedIn for new episodes featuring leaders redefining wealth management through technology, data, and human-centered innovation.
Learn more about Envestnet’s wealth management platform and how it unlocks the full power of data for advisors.
