Despite the headlines proclaiming its demise, active investment management is not going extinct — it’s evolving. The traditional mutual fund may be fading, but active decision-making now shines through new channels: model portfolios, direct indexing, and self-service apps. Whether it’s a retail investor fine-tuning a separately managed account (SMA), an advisor allocating across ETFs, or an endowment selecting specialty managers to meet diverse investment policy requirements, the index is no longer the boundary between passive and active — it’s the starting point for active decision-making.