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.
Salespeople at the firm often went beyond the matching algorithm to recommend network advisors on its Zoe Wealth platform, according to the regulator.
The Protect College Sports Act would cap school payments and codify NIL rights, with implications for advisors guiding young athletes.
"I know the number that I want to be able to retire on, and now I just want out," says Wilmington Trust's Marguerite Weese, describing a common refrain among business-owner clients.
Bessemer and Brown Brothers Harriman veteran Robert Ludricks III and private markets specialist Olof Akesson join the ultra-high-net-worth push on the East Coast.
765 investors were promised 260% annual returns on truck leases
As AI makes financial information more accessible than ever, Lana Hock explains why human judgment, trust, and empathy remain the qualities clients value most in a financial advisor
Northern Trust’s Ken Lassner shows advisors how to convert volatility into after-tax portfolio gains