Three CEOs. One stage. The biggest questions facing adviser businesses right now.

Recorded live at Adviser 3.0 2026, this is the first of our Sunset Studio Sessions — a series of four panel conversations captured on stage at our flagship annual conference. The Sunset Studio stage is sponsored by Northern Trust Asset Management. Philippa Mather of Paradigm Norton, Jo French of Attivo, and Alan Smith of Capital Asset Management join Ed Carey, CCO at Timeline, for an honest, wide-ranging conversation covering the topics that will define adviser businesses over the next few years.

On AI, the panel cuts through the noise. Joe explains why Ativo built its own LLMs from the ground up rather than reaching for off-the-shelf tools. Alan argues the industry is still in "Blockbuster got an app" territory and challenges firms to think about what AI-native looks like from first principles. Philippa pushes back on short-term hype cycles and makes the case that people, not technology, remain the real driver of business performance.

On growth, the discussion gets uncomfortable. The data says most adviser firms aren't growing in any meaningful way once market returns are stripped out. The panel explores why, what a scientific approach to referrals actually looks like, and why organic growth is a skill that has to be deliberately built.

The conversation closes on talent and culture: how to attract the next generation, why weekly one-to-ones beat most management interventions, and what a genuinely high-performance firm looks and feels like in practice.