By Andrew Welsch
Robinhood Markets is investing heavily in artificial intelligence capabilities for its customers, including AI services to help self-directed investors identify trading opportunities. But when it comes to financial advice, CEO Vlad Tenev doesn't think AI will replace human advisors entirely.
"We should expect human advisors to be around because that fills a very, very specific need that I don't think AI is quite going to fill in the near term," Tenev said in response to an analyst question about AI financial advisors during his company's earnings call on Wednesday.
The question from BofA Securities analyst Craig Siegenthaler comes amid increasing investor scrutiny of how AI might disrupt wealth managers and brokerage firms. Those concerns have sparked selloffs in wealth management stocks this year. For instance, in February, shares of Charles Schwab, Raymond James, and other financial companies sold off on news that fintech Altruist had introduced new tax-planning capabilities to its Hazel AI platform for advisors.
Many financial companies are racing to incorporate AI into their businesses, both as an internal productivity booster and in the form of AI-powered services for customers. Robinhood already offers customers Cortex, an AI powered assistant that can provide portfolio insights and digests. The company says nearly one million clients have used Cortex since it launched about a year ago.
Responding to Siegenthaler's question, Tenev said that AI financial advice can mean different things to different people, including trading recommendations and robo-advisors. Tenev said Robinhood is developing AI capabilities that can recommend strategies to clients, but said that any such service needs to be compliant with regulatory standards. Robinhood already offers a robo-advisor service to customers, Robinhood Strategies, which has grown to more than 285,000 funded customers and $1.6 billion in assets under management since launching just over a year ago.
"The other thing people mean when they say financial advice is, I want help just managing my entire spectrum of financial things," Tenev said. "And that involves your banking, your spending and budgeting, your estate planning. And we'll have a solution there for you, multiple solutions."
Tenev said the company is developing "digital self-serve solutions" for customers that can help with tax planning, estate planning, and other needs. In the future, Robinhood will "stitch" together these one-off services into a kind of bundled offering for clients, he said.
Doing so would also help fulfill Tenev's ambition to make Robinhood a one-stop shop for customers' every financial need. That said, he didn't write-off the value of human financial advisors, noting that some customers prefer working one-on-one with another person. Robinhood has such a business in TradePMR, a custodian for registered investment advisors that Robinhood bought in 2025. Tenev teased that the company will soon unveil new services for registered investment advisors.
Write to Andrew Welsch at andrew.welsch@barrons.com
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April 29, 2026 14:45 ET (18:45 GMT)
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