By Kenneth Corbin

As wealth managers have been investing substantially to improve the digital tools clients use to access their accounts and engage with their advisor, a few standouts have emerged. J.D. Power on Thursday issued a study ranking wealth managers' apps and websites, finding that across the board, those products are becoming sleeker, AI-driven, and packed with portfolio analytics.

"The importance of good design is hard to overstate when it comes to investor satisfaction with wealth management apps and websites," says Jon Sundberg, senior director of digital solutions at J.D. Power. He says that the industry is broadly improving its digital presence, and firms are getting "great traction" with virtual assistants powered by AI, but the "real key" to getting clients to engage with an app or website is "intuitive, clean design and consistency across different communication channels."

J.D. Power rated the digital experiences offered to clients on advised and do-it-yourself platforms, evaluating firms' websites and apps by the information they provide, their tools and capabilities, the performance of the system, and design. The results are based on a survey of 5,608 advised and DIY clients fielded this summer.

The winner in the advised-account category? Wells Fargo Advisors, which notched the highest overall customer satisfaction score of 756 out of 1,000. In the DIY category, Robinhood took the top spot with a score of 724.

Wells Fargo topped its peers in all four categories. Robinhood was the leader in tools and capabilities, system performance, and design.

J.D. Power awarded high marks in the advised category to J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, which checked in at No. 2 with a score of 748, followed by Vanguard (744), Charles Schwab (740), and U.S. Bank (739). The average score for the advised segment was 734.

The firms with the best digital experiences struck a balance that had a solid menu of features without compromising the overall design, avoiding the "tendency to pile on features and tools without giving as much thought to how they fit in the broader ecosystem of apps or sites for firms and how they help or matter for investors," says Mike Foy, managing director and head of wealth intelligence at J.D. Power.

"You want apps and sites to be robust and useful but also accessible, not overwhelming," he says. "Going too far in the other direction runs the risk of either having the great things apps and sites can do fail to register with investors or just turn them off in some way."

At the bottom of the list were LPL Financial in the advised category and Merrill Edge in the DIY segment, with scores of 627 and 674, respectively.

In the DIY category, Schwab was a close second with a score of 717, followed by Fidelity and Stash, which both scored 713, and J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, which checked in at 709, the average for the category.

Virtual assistants. In a sign of the growing embrace of AI in the industry, more than half of wealth management apps now have virtual assistants -- 54% of advised apps and 60% of the DIY segment. Those tools also translated into higher rates of client satisfaction. Advised clients who use their firm's virtual assistant reported an average overall satisfaction score of 767, 72 points higher than the average among advised clients whose firm doesn't offer that feature. In the DIY segment, virtual assistants added 47 points to the average satisfaction score.

"The continued growth of fintech players in the wealth management space has really raised the bar on investor expectations of a truly personalized digital experience," Foy says in a statement. "As firms continue to incorporate more capabilities into their digital properties, it is critical that they also deliver a consistent cross-channel experience that connects with investors whether they are engaging via desktop, mobile app, or speaking offline with an advisor or representative."

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 20, 2025 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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