While there is still a lot of smoke and mirrors and empty hype in the artificial intelligence marketplace, there is some real functionality coming to advisers from several providers.
Here are three examples of AI technology in production today.
Micronotes
Combining AI with survey technology, Micronotes takes consumer data at banks and identifies patterns to send targeted questionnaires, including queries such as “Are you thinking of buying a house over the next six months?”
Using targeted questions, the surveys get much higher response rates than traditional marketing efforts, and leads are automatically pushed toward the relevant salesperson, or financial adviser in the bank’s wealth management division. The software could work in brokerages and RIAs as well as banks, according to Mark Casady, founder of Vestigo Ventures, an investor in Micronotes.
Envestnet
Using data aggregation and analytics from its purchases of Yodlee and Wheelhouse Analytics, Envestnet has an application for financial institutions it calls AI FinCheck. As part of its FinApps suite of financial wellness apps, the digital assistant measures and monitors consumers’ financial picture across spending, saving, borrowing, investing and financial planning.
The tool will recommend personalized actions that the consumer can take to improve or automate aspects of their financial life. Advisers can provide AI FinCheck to clients to deepen relationships.
Salesforce
Launched in 2016, Salesforce's Einstein was one of the first customer relationship management technologies to feature an AI component. The technology gathers client data from the CRM and combines predictive analytics, natural language processing and machine learning to search for new opportunities, such as, which clients might be open to a new product or most likely to leave the adviser.
Einstein can help advisers understand how clients feel using sentiment analysis of client communications. The technology also connects to digital assistants from Google, Apple and Amazon to give advisers voice command functionality.
The Carmel, Indiana RIA grew nearly 150% in assets since severing ties with its first backer following a FINRA dispute.
Meanwhile, Raymond James' employee arm adds a defector from D.A. Davidson, and South Carolina-based RIA Ballast Rock Private Wealth recruits a new advisor.
A FINRA arbitration panel sided with a former wealth manager fired over a $642 deli platter and a disputed client event.
From disruptive AI to a looming advisor shortage and an impending migration of clients amid the Great Wealth Transfer, every headline of crisis hides an industry-defining opportunity.
New ICI research shows savers approaching retirement are most likely to ditch the glide path for a more personalized approach.
As $84 trillion prepares to change hands, advisors who treat estate planning as peripheral are quietly building a sieve, not a book.
In volatile markets, the advisors who win aren't the ones with the best calls - they're the ones whose clients stay the course.
