Laser Focus World is an industry bedrock—first published in 1965 and still going strong. We publish original articles about cutting-edge advances in lasers, optics, photonics, sensors, and quantum technologies, as well as test and measurement, and the shift currently underway to usher in the photonic integrated circuits, optical interconnects, and copackaged electronics and photonics to deliver the speed and efficiency essential for data centers of the future.

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Editorial Advisory Board

  • Professor Andrea M. Armani, University of Southern California
  • Ruti Ben-Shlomi, Ph.D., LightSolver
  • James Butler, Ph.D., Hamamatsu
  • Natalie Fardian-Melamed, Ph.D., Columbia University
  • Justin Sigley, Ph.D., AmeriCOM
  • Professor Birgit Stiller, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, and Leibniz University of Hannover
  • Professor Stephen Sweeney, University of Glasgow
  • Mohan Wang, Ph.D., University of Oxford
  • Professor Xuchen Wang, Harbin Engineering University
  • Professor Stefan Witte, Delft University of Technology

Orion Enhances its Unified, Flexible Advisor Platform with New Tech Upgrades

Latest updates, revealed at Orion’s Ascent conference, include AI-powered meeting agendas, Redtail CRM, Advisor Trading and More

Orion, the premier provider of transformative wealthtech solutions for financial advisors and the enterprises that serve them, announced today at Orion Ascent 2025 a series of key updates across its connected technology ecosystem.

“This year’s ‘All In’ theme at Ascent 2025 underscores the deep commitment financial advisors make every day—to their clients, their businesses and the advancement of the industry,” said Reed Colley, President of Orion Advisor Technology. “Orion’s latest technology enhancements to our unified, flexible ecosystem embody that same vision by delivering investor-centric technology that empowers advisors to grow their businesses and create lasting value for their clients.”

New AI Feature Streamlines Meeting Prep

Today, Orion introduced AI-powered meeting agendas inside of Portfolio View, allowing advisors to create auto-generated meeting agendas. Leveraging portfolio analytics, financial planning, CRM notes, and the power of AI, this innovative feature streamlines the preparation process for advisors, enhancing efficiency in client meetings.

Redtail Updates Boost Enterprise Efficiency and Improve Collaboration

Orion’s industry-leading Redtail CRM is launching three impactful updates in Q1 2025. First, firms can now reassign CRM ownership, supporting seamless transitions and consistent workflows. Second, the new Lightweight Enterprise Reporting feature allows large RIAs, aggregators, and broker-dealers to generate regulatory and compliance reports across multiple CRMs, paving the way for a future Enterprise Dashboard with full organizational oversight. The final new feature is secure third-party document sharing, enabling advisors to collaborate effectively with external stakeholders like CPAs and attorneys, simplifying document exchange and enhancing client satisfaction. Insights from Orion’s 2025 Investor Survey informed this enhancement, showing that 42% of investors prefer their advisors closely coordinate with third-party professionals when specific issues arise, while 33% value close collaboration on all financial matters.

Additionally, last month, Orion launched an early access environment for Redtail CRM users, giving them the opportunity to test and provide input on new features before full rollout—ensuring the solutions are shaped by those who use them most.

Advisor Trading and Compliance Upgrades Streamline Workflows and Oversight

Built on the powerful Eclipse trading and rebalancing platform, Advisor Trading offers streamlined workflows and easy-to-use features, now including household trading and asset category portfolio groupings. Upcoming enhancements in the first half of 2025 will introduce Advisor as Portfolio Manager (APM) trading, tax management capabilities, and an Insights Dashboard to automate workflows for identifying and submitting trade orders.

“Orion Advisor Trading allows our portfolio managers to quickly and easily view the essential data they need to make portfolio decisions,” said Mac Wilson, Director of Reporting & Performance of The Haverford Trust Company. “Having the ability to view and edit cash set asides and trading preferences in Portfolio View saves our portfolio managers time from having to pull this from Eclipse. They can easily place asset trades directly in Advisor Trading while still receiving the warnings they would expect to see in Eclipse.”

Orion also recently introduced Options Trading in Eclipse, empowering advisors to generate income through covered calls and protect against down markets with protective puts. The tool is fully customizable and scalable, allowing advisors to tailor strategies to any client need while executing trades securely through FIX protocol.

Model Search & Comparison is a new offering for the Orion Advisor Portal which will be integrated across the Orion ecosystem. It brings Orion and advisor-created managed models together in one location for the advisor to view a customized, curated list of their models, along with all model information including performance and the ability to compare models for researching which models are right for their investor clients. Model Search & Comparison brings the Communities Orion Investment Portal and its best-in-class list of third-party managers and investment product opportunities to the advisor in a seamless, intuitive workflow.

Orion Compliance continues to strengthen oversight capabilities for its top-ranked regtech solution. After listening to advisor feedback, Orion launched a powerful new enhancement to the Drift feature: registration-level tracking. Firms can now track risk and allocation drift with complete end-to-end workflow and reporting when a registration, household, or account drifts out of range, allowing firms to scale compliance more effectively.

“With nearly half of advisors at least partially outsourcing compliance and about a quarter planning to increase their compliance technology investment in 2025, registration-level tracking allows firms to stay at the industry forefront and reduce conflicts of interest at scale,” said Louis Giannini, Senior Director of Product Management at Orion.

Continued Investment in Innovation to Help Advisors Thrive

By investing 15% of its technology revenue back into research and development in 2025, Orion is committed to powering advisors’ success. Next quarter, the company will launch an enhanced search feature that enables advisors to locate data across all Orion systems seamlessly. This functionality will initially debut in the Advisor Portal, specifically supporting new account opening. It empowers users to access information that resides in any connected system, streamlining workflows and enhancing efficiency.

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About Orion

Orion is a premier provider of the tech-enabled fiduciary process that transforms the advisor-client relationship by enabling financial advisors to Prospect, Plan, Invest, and Achieve within a single, connected, technology-driven experience. Combined, our brand entities, Orion Advisor Tech, Orion Portfolio Solutions, Brinker Capital Investments, Redtail Technology, and Orion OCIO create a complete offering that empowers firms to attract new clients seamlessly, connect goals more meaningfully to investment strategies and outcomes, and ultimately track progress toward each investor’s unique definition of financial success. Orion services $4.9 trillion in assets under administration and $97.5 billion of wealth management platform assets (as of December 31, 2024) and supports over seven million technology accounts and thousands of independent advisory firms. Today, 17 out of the Top 20 Barron’s RIA firms1 rely on Orion’s technology to power their businesses and win for investors. Learn more at Orion.com.

1 Source: 2024 Top 100 RIA Firms, Barron's, 2024.

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