AI tools have vast potential to save advisors both time and money, but taking the first steps toward smart tech-stack decisions can be daunting, experts said at Financial Planning's ADVISE AI conference in Las Vegas.
Yet few advisors (6%) describe their firms as enthusiastic early adopters of AI — and fewer than 10% said they felt very well-prepared to implement AI effectively in terms of infrastructure, workflows and staffing.
With the proliferation of AI tools for wealth management on the market, it can be hard for firms large and small to make tech decisions that pay off.
Two panels at the
Moderated by Shell Black, president and founder of ShellBlack, the day-one panel featured Michelle Feinstein, vice president and general manager of financial services product at Salesforce; Amanda Lott, head of wealth planning and innovation at the Advice Lab for JPMorgan Private Bank; and
The day-two panel was moderated by Craig Iskowitz, CEO of Ezra Group, and featured Amy Young, managing director of capital markets strategic partnerships at Microsoft;
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Top use cases for AI-based tools
Of all the AI applications available, what should firms focus on first? That depends entirely on what problems you're looking to solve.
"There's a bit of a race — which use cases should we implement first?" Feinstein said. "Most of the firms I'm talking to are getting it down to five [use cases] or less, and they're very simple. They're employee- facing, because employee- facing is safer — not 100% safe, but safer."
Both Feinstein and Lott recommended focusing on just a handful of use cases at the outset of a firm's AI journey.
Top use cases they listed included thought leadership, meeting and client interaction summarization, financial planning, procedure and policy training, document summarization, recordkeeping/archiving and compliance.
Smaller firms may find it useful to focus on a single use case, said Deane, who added that AI tools have been "super impactful" at his firm in terms of saving both time and money.
"It really shifts things, when you're implementing AI — and that's from personal experience, not from reading research reports," Deane said.
"Be clear on your firm's goals, and pick one area of your business that you want to improve," Deane said. "Whether that's content creation, sales, client service or productivity, there are platforms leveraging AI in each of those areas."
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Picking your AI path
At Integrated Partners, Mohr said before deciding its on its tech, the firm first asked what its biggest roadblocks were.
"We started by taking a step back and said: What are the problems that our team members are facing, that they're frequently getting upset about, that is causing frustrations in their day?" she said.
Through that process, Integrated Partners identified improving the account-opening process as its target. It selected Invent to create a tool that not only streamlined that workflow but also created personalization opportunities along the way, Mohr said. The end result saved the work of "two full-time humans," she said.
Cambridge, too, saw efficiencies thanks to its deeply researched AI integrations. Using two AI-powered meeting tools, Zocks and Jump, Graham said that Cambridge has already seen "40,000 hours of savings for our community of advisors."
"Being able to actually track and be able to validate those hours was important for us to be able to ensure that we saw the greatest value for the greatest investment that we made," he said.
In JPMorgan's asset and wealth management division, the firm holds "AI dates" to discuss potential uses and applications, Lott said. Listening to what's said in these conversations is key.
"We think our employees are really the best drivers of innovation. They are the ones who are in the trenches and
Some will build, some will buy
While large firms like JP Morgan have the resources to invest in custom AI solutions, smaller firms can take advantage of third-party providers to access AI capabilities.
"As a boutique shop, I think it can easily get overwhelming to think about all the different ways that we need to remain competitive in this landscape," Deane said. "But as a smaller advisor with under $1 million to $200 million in assets, you don't necessarily have to go out and build an in-house solution. It can be as easy as leveraging software that's already leveraging AI to make your life pretty simple."
Data — the engine powering AI
"Data is what drives AI," Black said. But data also presents a big roadblock for many firms, and panelists emphasized the importance of ensuring data quality and security.
Many firms are grappling with unstructured and fragmented data sources — whether from proprietary systems, legacy tech stacks, siloed organizations or other issues — which "becomes a paralyzing factor," Feinstein said.
"Even getting [all your data] into a digital format that can be leveraged by some of these tools, that's a big step for many firms to take," said Lott of JPMorgan. "What we have found is you have to show the value to the advisors of why they should take some of their precious time to get that data into good order. … You have to incentivize them to get the data in good order. And then the other part is you have to make sure that data stays clean."
Take your time and 'be intentional'
"Things are moving so fast with AI," said Mohr. "There's so many new tools coming at us, and if you just jump in and start using, that is a negative to AI, because you need to take the time to learn the tech and learn to properly leverage it."
Black's firm uses Salesforce, Google Apps and Asana — "all of them are SaaS platforms that have AI features that we can enable."
"Look at your existing tech stack and see what AI features you might already own before you all go out and buy the nice, shiny penny that you find," Black said.
Advisors should "be intentional" with their AI choices, said Graham.
"I'll be the one preaching the story all the time of 'know the problem we're fixing.' Just waving a shiny new toy around with no real purpose for it is a dangerous activity of expense," he said. "We've tried to be very, very thoughtful about that at Cambridge to make sure these are sustainable adoptions."
At the same time, don't wait too long to implement your tech choices. "I think the bottom line is you have to start, right," said Young of Microsoft, "because the only way to learn is by doing."
Above all, remember that although it may seem like AI can do anything, it can't do everything.
"You probably don't need AI for every type of problem that you're trying to solve for," said Jain of Zeplyn. "Sometimes all you need is a simple heuristic-based solution, right?"
