Estate Planning Faces Major Shifts as Tech Disrupts
As 2025 comes to an end, I’m seeing seismic shifts in how estate planning is conducted and who’s doing it. Some of these changes have been years in the making. Others are accelerating faster than anyone expected.
Here’s what I believe will happen in the next two years. Some predictions will make attorneys uncomfortable. Some will challenge advisors. All of them reflect what I’m seeing on the ground working with hundreds of professionals across the industry. What I care most about is families getting estate plans done and professionals working together to no longer accept the status quo of having a majority of the United States without any estate plan.
10 Predictions
1. Estate planning as we know it dies.
I’m referring to the checkbox mentality that’s plagued our industry for decades. Advisors will move beyond the bare minimum of checking beneficiary designations to confirm that client estate plans are created and updated. That means educating clients about the importance of having estate documents. It means ensuring every asset flows to the beneficiaries either through beneficiary designations or through retitling.
The old model is broken. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, advisors have been able to conduct business with clients nationwide. They can’t be expected to find attorneys in every state, so they either accept clients without plans or find another path.
2. Clients start demanding estate planning (instead of avoiding it).
Here’s my most optimistic prediction: As awareness grows about estate planning’s importance, clients will start proactively requesting comprehensive estate plans.
Younger generations who’ve watched their parents struggle with outdated estate plans or no plans at all will insist on better. They’ll view estate planning not as a morbid chore, but as essential protection for their families.
This shift is already starting. I’m seeing more 30 and 40 year olds asking sophisticated estate- planning questions. They’re not waiting until retirement to get their affairs in order.
Housing prices are out of control. That $100,000 house 20 years ago wasn’t a huge deal in probate, but it’s now worth $1 million, which results in over $40,000 in probate fees in California.
Major financial institutions and RIAs are building teams with the goal of having every client with an estate plan. If a firm has 50,000 clients across the country, how can it effectively get each client through the process if it has to work with hundreds of different law firms, taking weeks or months to schedule appointments with those firms? There’s a reason that more than 60% of people don’t have an estate plan. Getting 50,000 clients through the old model isn’t feasible.
3. The rise of collaborative planning teams, aka tailored family office teams.
The best client outcomes happen when advisors, attorneys, accountants and insurance professionals work together seamlessly.
I predict we’ll see more formalized collaborative planning teams in the next two years. Not just informal referral networks, but structured teams with shared clients, coordinated meetings and integrated planning processes.
Why? Because clients are demanding it. They’re tired of disconnected professionals who fail to communicate effectively. They want their team to actually function as a team, a family office, if you will.
With the advisor owning the client relationship initially, they need to partner with technology and professionals that allow that relationship to remain intact, not attempt to build an entirely new nucleus.
4. Forward-thinking attorneys begin building relationships with tech.
As an estate attorney, I’ve interacted with plenty of attorneys who perceive financial advisors offering estate planning as encroaching on their territory. Look no further than LinkedIn for evidence.
Here’s what I’ve learned working with hundreds of advisors: They’re not trying to steal work from attorneys. Advisors who push their clients to create estate plans genuinely want to ensure that their clients’ loved ones are protected. They want clients to have clear instructions for incapacitation or death. And when advanced planning issues arise, good advisors immediately refer clients to attorneys.
Estate planning’s biggest challenge doesn’t lie in who’s best qualified to create estate plans. The real problem? The client experience has been broken for years. Advisors send their clients to attorneys, but get few in return. Attorneys are unfortunately less skilled at marketing and building client relationships compared to advisors.
Going to an attorney solely to get their basic estate documents without establishing a relationship between the attorney and client is no longer acceptable. Attorneys can no longer fall back on their degree as the reason someone gets a simple trust or will. A relationship must be built.
Attorneys will always be the best option for a client, specifically attorneys who create and fund the documents and notify and educate those named in the documents. Simply handing the client a funding guide will no longer do. Too many people spend $5,000 to meet with an attorney one time, then have a paralegal draft the documents while an administrative assistant meets with the client to notarize them. Attorneys who build confidence and trust will continue to be sought after by advisors and clients as a trusted partner.
5. Advisor and attorney intelligence become even more important.
Yes, artificial intelligence can pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Level III exam. It can process legal documents faster than any human. There’s no doubt AI surpasses advisors and attorneys on many technical fronts.
But I strongly believe that the real AIs—as in advisor and attorney intelligence—will become even more important in estate planning. Algorithms can’t replicate the empathy and humanness required.
AI’s accuracy at answering estate-planning questions will only improve. But gray areas require attorney involvement, and advisors need to understand that they may want what is best, but they must continue to build relationships with attorneys to navigate these gray areas.
Some client conversations constantly remind me of this. The widow who needs help navigating grief while making critical financial decisions. The business owner who’s terrified of family conflict over succession. These situations demand human judgment and conversation with the client.
6. Estate-planning software vendors will try to become the one platform to rule them all.
You’ll see vendors who have publicly stated they’re not interested in tax planning suddenly tout their tax planning capabilities. They’ll compete with financial planning tool incumbents like RightCapital and Holistiplan.
This reflects the trend that financial planning tool incumbents already started in 2024. Everyone wants to own the entire client workflow.
Watch for aggressive feature announcements and integration partnerships designed to lock users into single ecosystems.
This is an age-old trend: build it or buy it. Perhaps we’ll see some decide not to be a jack of all trades, but instead a master of one. Too many are pumping money into taking ownership of everything rather than leveraging relationships with companies that already dominate a niche space.
7. Those same estate-planning vendors triple everyone’s prices in the next two years.
Follow the money, and you’ll see investors in those vendors wanting shorter payback periods, especially in a downturn.
Software that costs $5,000 per year for all-you-can-eat estate plans today will cost $15,000 per year by 2027. Vendors will justify it with new features and integrations. But the real driver will be investor pressure to show profitability.
The alternative is that advisors will feel stuck with an estate-planning software because their clients’ documents live in that software. If that tool requires you to maintain a subscription for the client to be able to make future amendments, that isn’t a year-to-year subscription—it’s a lifetime requirement while those clients remain with you.
Plan your technology budget accordingly.
8. State law variations force advisors to get savvier in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act era.
Community property states, common law states and states with different probate thresholds create wildly different estate-planning needs.
Advisors working with clients across multiple states will need a deeper understanding of state-specific rules, especially given that the federal exemption limit has now increased to $15 million. The days of applying one-size-fits-all estate planning advice are over.
This doesn’t mean advisors need law degrees. It means they need access to attorneys in all these states. Hybrid models of technology solutions, along with an attorney relationship, will be standard. Some software has already begun building these networks of attorneys, and it will likely become a requirement for most compliance teams within two years.
9. Estate planning becomes the driver for successful client retention.
The chorus of “estate planning isn’t just for lawyers” grows louder every year. Smart advisors understand they aren’t attorneys and are already leveraging technology and attorneys to cover every facet of estate planning for every generation in their clients’ families.
I’ve long believed that no financial plan is complete without an estate plan. If advisors are eagerly anticipating The Great Wealth Transfer, why not be ready for The Great Wave of Estate Planning that comes with it?
Estate planning touches everything: insurance, investment accounts, real estate, business succession and family dynamics. It’s the connective tissue that holds a client relationship together across decades and generations.
10. Digital assets finally get the attention they deserve.
Cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens, online accounts and digital media libraries have been estate-planning afterthoughts for too long.
Over the next two years, clients will start asking pointed questions about digital asset succession. What happens to my cryptocurrency when I die? Who gets access to my cloud storage? How do my heirs recover my digital photo archives?
Advisors and attorneys who can competently address digital assets will differentiate themselves from their peers. Those who can’t will seem out of touch.
I’ve already seen families locked out of deceased parents’ accounts because no one documented passwords or digital asset instructions. It’s a nightmare scenario that’s completely avoidable.
Adapt Early and Thrive
These predictions aren‘t wild speculation. They’re based on trends I’ve watched accelerate across the industry.
Some will make professionals uncomfortable. Change always does. But resistance won’t stop these shifts from happening.
The professionals who adapt early will thrive. Those who cling to old models will struggle. My prayer is that everyone views estate planning through the lens of how we help more families, not how I can make more money.
Which side of these predictions will you be on?
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