It's been a busy few days for AI in the wealth space.
Carson Group, Tifin, and AdvisorEngine have all unveiled new capabilities aimed at helping financial advisors save time and improve efficiency across their practices.
On Thursday, Carson Group, a national RIA with more than $42 billion in assets under management, introduced its first proprietary AI assistant. Named “Steve,” the tool is designed to assist advisors in quickly finding answers across Carson’s internal systems, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual searches.
“Our new AI assistant showcases how much value in innovation, efficiency and growth tools we are bringing to advisors at Carson Group,” said Dani Fava, chief strategy officer at Carson Group, who joined the firm in April 2024. “This chatbot isn’t just about faster answers – it’s about smarter conversations, deeper understanding and delivering real value at scale.”
Steve was trained on Carson’s digital ecosystem of data, while the AI is powered by AWS, a spokesperson for the firm told InvestmentNews.
The Omaha, Nebraska-based RIA expects Steve will save about five minutes per search, translating into more than 5,000 hours saved annually for each advisor across its network. Carson also anticipates the assistant will help double the number of client households served over the next five years.
“Steve is the first AI tool developed by Carson Group, and we were able to do so because we own our proprietary data,” Fava added.
John O'Connell, CEO of The Oasis Group, said the news from Carson Group puts it in the company of many large banks that have built their own AI chatbots, most notably Bank of America's Erica.
"I have previously said that 2024 was the year of the AI notetaker and 2025 will be the year of chatbots," O'Connell said in an emailed statement to InvestmentNews.
"Carson Group’s bold move ... puts them on the path to truly realize next-best-action capabilities for their advisors," he said. "I believe that this is a wake up call for other large firms to begin to develop their data strategy, and to determine how to effectively use AI to mine their proprietary data."
Meanwhile, Tifin, with its established track record of developing financial AI tools for enterprises, has launched a new productivity platform dubbed Tifin AXIS. The solution is built for asset managers and wealth firms looking to automate middle-office processes such as onboarding, account servicing, trading and reporting.
"The middle office has long been a bottleneck in financial services, burdened by manual processes and legacy systems," Andy Brown, TIFIN AXIS advisor, said in the launch announcement Wednesday.
The AXIS platform, developed with data infrastructure support from Palantir, features a suite of AI agents that combine task orchestration with human-in-the-loop collaboration.
Tifin said its AI agent suite has already been rolled out across several midsize RIAs, targeting high-turnover operational areas historically hampered by manual work and legacy systems.
Elsewhere, AdvisorEngine has bolstered its own wealth management platform with several new AI and data integrations.
The firm is tapping three of the leading notetaking assistants in the wealth space – Jump, Zeplyn, and Zocks – which save time for advisors by automatically generating actionable client notes from advisor meetings and accurately transcribing conversations, among other benefits.
“These AI upgrades, coupled with greater automation and data access, enhance the AdvisorEngine wealth platform's approachability, connectedness and scalability,” said Rich Cancro, founder and CEO of AdvisorEngine.
Additional integrations with Zapier and ByAllAccounts, part of Morningstar Wealth, aim to streamline back-office functions and improve access to financial account data. Zapier’s capabilities are expected to ease friction in workflows that rely on multiple software environments, including Microsoft Office and Google Workspace.
AdvisorEngine is one of the top 10 FINRA-compliant client management software for RIAs. Read more here
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