Domain Money cuts about a third of staff, including half its planning team, citing AI automation

Domain Money, the RIA founded by Adam Dell, laid off advisors in August 2026, with former staff describing cuts of roughly a third of the company and "about half" of the financial planning team. Dell told InvestmentNews the cuts followed "improved automation and efficiency, enabling us to serve up to 150 clients per advisor," and said the firm "right sized our advisor team" to match its 1,500-client base. The firm had 39 employees as of its May 15, 2026 Form ADV, including 14 in advisory roles. Laid-off advisors were offered 1.5 weeks of pay plus two to three months of COBRA. Some of those cut had been hired only months earlier, in what the company called its largest hiring class. One former advisor disputed the rationale: the AI tools were "incredibly inefficient and time-consuming, and didn't seem to be reducing our time very much at all." Flat-fee advisory firms are betting client loads can scale with software - and cutting the humans first.