Altfest's president explains how advisors can use AI to their advantage

The Altfest family business is going AI.

Growing up as the son of trailblazing RIAs Lew and Karen Altfest, it was not unimaginable for Andrew Altfest to one day rise to his current position as president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management. What was far less foreseeable when the firm was founded back in 1983 was the idea of artificial intelligence playing a role in tax and estate planning. 

Seriously, back then AI was science fiction. Now it’s the key to a brand-new future, not to mention Andrew’s growth plans for the $1.8 billion RIA.   

“I joined the wealth management firm over 20 years ago and I remember the first day being endlessly fascinating and stimulating. And I really haven't looked back,” Altfest said. “I found my true passion within the business, which is to help clients, apply financial planning strategies, and to grow things.”

What he has been growing for the past five years is a platform called FP Alpha which uses AI to assist advisors in tax and estate planning. Clients upload their tax returns, insurance policies, and other financial information into FP Alpha, and it spits out a full wealth distribution plan.

“It's complementary to traditional planning tools, and it allows advisors to differentiate themselves, bring in more business, save a tremendous amount of time, and connect with the next generation, which as we know is really important with estate planning,” Altfest said. “It does a lot with little time spent. And at the end of the day, that's what you want with AI.”

Altfest said AI will ultimately enable financial advisors to automate the financial planning process, or at least the time-consuming parts of it. In other words, using AI like a “genius assistant” to handle the analytical and communication sides, while freeing up advisors to spend more time with clients.

AI makes this scalable, Altfest said. Prior to now, services including tax and insurance expertise were limited only to high-net worth clients. But now with technology, clients need not pay extra to hire a CPA or trust attorney.

“Technology is allowing us to do for clients what normally would never have been able to be done due to time, due to expertise,” Altfest said. “And advisors can engage the way that they can and then work with the clients, other advisors, attorneys, accountants, to help, coordinate that plan and allow them to have a very harmonious relationship.”

Finally, on the topic of succession planning, Altfest also applies such forward thinking by telling advisors – and other business owners – that they simply “can't just think about where you are today.”

“Clients are getting older, so if you don't have a relationship with the next generation, you're toast. Once the clients pass away, the money is very likely to leave. Tons of studies show that, so you really need to be able to say, 'OK, how do I solidify this relationship, today and into the future?'” Altfest said, adding that estate planning meetings should be used to bring families together to build trust between the generations.

“The way I see it is today and into the future, you have to be able to provide additional value in planning and show that you can almost have a mini-family office for the average client.”