As we all know, technology and the Internet are remaking the financial advisory world in terms of how the investing public looks at fees and how advice is delivered, among other things. What that’ll ultimately mean for financial advisors remains a work in progress, but among the people who’ve added their two cents on the possible future of financial planning in the digital era is William Trout, senior analyst at Celent, a research and consulting company focused on financial services.

In a report he wrote last month called Disrupting The Disruptors: RIAs, Online Brokers, And the Challenges To The Automated Investment Advisors, Trout posits the shift toward technology-driven investing has undercut the role of the advisor and exposed inherent weaknesses in the high-cost model of brokerage houses and RIAs.

In his report, Trout stated this is all part of the natural evolution of the advisory space, an evolution that has picked up steam with rapid technology changes. He says the digital genie isn’t going back into the bottle, and he calls the current environment Automated Investing 1.0—an era where the rise of automated investing has shifted the market power from advisor to client. Going forward, he believes the automated advisory sector will be dominated by the custodians and online brokerages, along with a small number of start-ups with secure distribution networks and differentiated value propositions.

“Advisors will either have to get with the program or be forced to move upmarket, which has happened in the brokerage space with some exceptions such as the Merrill Edge platform,” Trout says in an interview. “The days of fat and happy profits by charging 100 basis points for being basically a steward are over.”

As for RIAs, he adds, they’ll have to find some kind of accommodation with automated advice providers. “That can be something like a tie-up such as the Fidelity-Betterment relationship, or it can be employing some sort of automation directly.”

The Fidelity-Betterment hookup refers to Fidelity’s announcement in October that it will refer advisors looking for a so-called “robo-advisor” platform to Betterment Institutional’s array of online investment portfolios and other financial services.

Also in October, Charles Schwab announced its own plans to roll out a no-fee robo-investing platform in this year’s first quarter to be available both to investors and to Schwab-affiliated RIAs.

This sets up some potentially interesting scenarios for advisors. “Most RIAs (whether of their own volition or not) will seek to harness the power of the automated platforms through partnerships with broker custodians,” the report stated. “Awkward cultural fit and conflicting interests (as the custodians market increasingly directly to affluent segments) will make it difficult for most RIAs to gain traction, however. If anything, many RIAs may end up operating largely as distribution vehicles for the broker custodians, serving lower value customers via automated platforms while providing bespoke service to a handful of high-end clients.”

That’s a harsh conclusion that many RIAs would disagree with, particularly those serving high-net-worth clients with complicated financial and estate planning needs. Indeed, in a follow-up chat Trout said these types of advisors are more sheltered from the digital storm—at least for as long as their current, mostly older client base is still around.

“The mass affluent, and specifically the millennials who’ve embraced online, automated advice, won’t be young and poor forever,” he said. “Increasingly, they’ll look for value, and the traditional RIA model of the past 25 years will be put under pressure.”