Yes, we’ve all heard by now that AI is the future for financial advisors. In coming years, they will be using AI technology more and more to do more and more for clients. There’s little doubt about it. Case closed.
But what should wealth managers be doing with AI right now? And how do they get started using AI tools if they haven’t done so already?
Despite the widely accepted promises AI has to offer, the primary use case right now is good old fashioned note taking. There are a number of AI note-taking tools that are being rapidly adopted by financial advisors to help them capture notes from meetings with very little effort.
Another way AI is being used is content marketing. According to Michael Reynolds, principal at Elevation Financial, this is especially true for independent RIAs who have more freedom and flexibility to post content like blogs and videos. AI is being used to create or outline written content as well as video content.
“AI is also very useful for specific technical research such as deep tax research. For example, there are niche AI tools that can provide answers based on being trained on the tax code,” Reynolds said.
Along similar lines, Daniel Burke, chief technology officer at Callan Family Office, currently sees AI's main impact as improving advisor productivity and firm-wide operational efficiency. He points out that today most advisors are using AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Copilot to handle meeting notes, summarize research, and draft client communications - work that used to take twice the time.
On the operational side, however, Burke said AI will increasingly help advisor teams automate manual processes such as extracting data from alternative investment statements or reconciling account values across custodian and billing systems.
“Our technology and innovation team is using AI to rapidly design and test new business applications with front office teams. In some of these early deployments, AI is already delivering efficiency gains equivalent to adding new full-time employees,” Burke said.
When it comes to the current role of AI in wealth management offices, Jason Britton, founder and CIO of Reflection Asset Management, points out the larger players have shown reticence to adopt AI or to have it play a large role in advisory relationships due to compliance and record keeping concerns. That said, he is seeing AI prevalence in repetitive tasks, such as chat bots being utilized for client account opening documentation preparation, meeting note taking as part of a Zoom or Teams meeting, and being used to create notes or client communiques.
“It has yet to catch on in terms of being used to dispense advice or provide trading strategies,” Britton said.
For those advisors yet to dip their toe into the AI pool, Elevation Financial’s Reynolds believes the best way to get started is to look for places in their workflows where automation can be introduced.
“Note taking is an easy win. But beyond that, look for marketing activates that can be supported by AI tool. Try a few different tools and compare how they work. Watch the training provided by vendors,” Reynolds said.
Callan’s Burke, meanwhile, said the easiest place to start is with AI tools that help advisors work more efficiently without requiring large technology investments or steep learning curves. Expense management tools, for example, can now save countless hours by automatically reading receipts and categorizing expenses.
Beyond these stand-alone productivity tools, Burke believes firms can begin integrating AI by taking advantage of the significant investments their third-party software providers are making in specialized areas, such as performance reporting, alternative investments, or estate planning.
“Vendors are spending heavily to train AI models, enabling their software to read client documents, extract insights, and provide more personalized analysis to advisors. When these tools integrate well with a firm's existing systems, they help replace outdated workflows with more efficient ones,” Burke said.
However, while AI can play a role in the mundane and repetitive tasks in the Adviser’s practice such as paperwork or data synthesis or summary, the client facing relationship type interactions have yet to show weakness to AI dislocation. Britton notes that this can be seen in the adoption rates of robo advisors.
“At this juncture with the technology where it currently is, clients are preferring the steady hand of a flesh and blood advisor,” Britton said.
Finally, when it comes to investing in the AI revolution, Evan Feagans, portfolio manager & managing director at TCW, sees the best investment opportunities in what he calls “AI Enablers,” or those companies that supply to the datacenters that run AI models. AI datacenters require a massive investment in technical infrastructure like compute, memory, networking, power, and cooling solutions.
“The scale of these investments is increasing as companies and governments recognize the strategic imperative to be at the forefront of the development of artificial intelligence, and these AI enablers are the biggest beneficiaries of this arms race,” Feagans said, adding that he expects the level of investment in AI infrastructure to reach $1 trillion per year in aggregate by the end of the decade.
He points out that the big four hyperscalers – Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta - continue to raise their capital expenditure budgets nearly every quarter, and they are now joined by the likes of Oracle, Coreweave, xAI, Stargate and many more emerging players.
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