Enterprise RIAs need more than scale to compete, Cerulli says
With enterprise RIAs now holding 58% of channel assets, service breadth – not size – will decide who wins
As enterprise RIAs have grown to control most of the assets in the registered investment advisor channel, a new Cerulli Associates report says size won’t be enough to give them a competitive edge.
According to the latest RIA marketplace report by the Boston-based research firm, enterprise RIAs now hold 58% of RIA channel assets, up 18 percentage points since 2020.
The segment has grown at a 20% compound annual rate over the past five years, compared with 12% for the RIA channels overall. RIAs now account for 28% of all wealth management assets, and the number of advisors at RIAs is just under 100,000.
The number of RIA firms with at least $5 billion in assets rose to 357 in 2025 from 202 in 2020, representing a 12.1% CAGR. Over the same period, firms managing less than $10 million fell to 3,737 from 4,027, which equals a -1.5% CAGR. By headcount, firms in the $5 billion-plus tier now employ 38% of all RIA advisors.
Large RIAs compete on service breadth
According to Cerulli, the frantic pace of acquisitions over the years has watered down many of the usual ways firms set themselves apart. In response, large RIAs are expanding into tax planning, estate services, family office work and institutional consulting. Among the large RIAs Cerulli examined, 60% offer trust and estate planning.
“There is a growing chasm between firms that can build scalable platforms and those limited by traditional operating structures,” said Stephen Caruso, director of wealth management at Cerulli. “Enterprise RIAs are investing in centralized business development, integrated service delivery, structured talent pipelines, and expanded planning capabilities to serve more complex, affluent clients.”
Read more: Concierge services and specialized expertise: how advisory firms are courting ultra-wealthy clients
Digging into operations, Cerulli found that advisors at RIAs spend 53% of a typical week on client-facing work, with administration and investment management taking up more than 17 hours of a 40-hour week. Few firms employ specialists to take on that load: only 17% have compliance professionals, 14% have marketing staff and 19% have planning specialists or paraplanners.
Technology is picking up a lot of the slack. Cerulli found that 79% of RIAs now use AI in some capacity, most often through general-purpose tools, and 49% use it for note-taking or call documentation; only 23% use AI for financial planning, though another 32% plan to. Many billion-dollar RIAs are also leaning on AI and data to sustain growth, yet more than 40% of them say they need more from the technology they already have.
Client acquisition is moving to the center as well. Among billion-dollar RIAs, 47% treat it as a responsibility shared across the business, while 11% rely on a dedicated business development team. As the pressure mounts for firms to achieve organic growth, Cerulli expects the role of centralized business development to grow.
Consolidation sets the pace
M&A is reshaping the hybrid side of the market, Cerulli said, as the number of hybrid RIA firms fell 4.9% in 2025 mostly because of mergers and acquisitions. By that same token, advisors per firm rose 14.6% to an average of 12.5.
Broader deal data shows no signs of a slowdown. The latest quarterly read by Echelon Partners counted 125 announced wealth management transactions in the third quarter of 2026, putting the year on track for a record 510 deals, above 2025’s total of 466. In 11 of the Q3 deals Echelon spotlighted, wealth managers bought tax, insurance, retirement or consulting businesses, the same service lines Cerulli says enterprise firms are adding.
Succession will also keep deal pipelines full, as Cerulli counts almost 10,000 advisors at RIAs who are nearing retirement and unsure of their succession plan.
“Cerulli expects more RIAs to provide all-encompassing services as they seek to support growth and capture fee revenue that might otherwise go to third-party providers,” Caruso said.
