My humanoid assistant flags it before the client even knows to be worried: the sale of his business closes next month, and his daughter is about to turn 25. At that age, she'll have legal control over 50% of the money that has sat in her trust since she was born. It's the first tranche of monies becoming available to her based on age.
Nothing is on either of their calendars.
I call them.
Quarterly check-ins. Annual reviews. A call before tax season. That's how advisors pace relationships today. After all, a recurring meeting is the easiest way to assure we're regularly in touch with clients. In 20 years, I don't think that model survives. The reason it exists disappears.
AI will run the mechanics. Rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, cash flow modeling, plan updates the moment something changes. And it’s not reviewed once a quarter, it’s current all the time.
A client will glance through a pair of glasses and see their whole financial picture overlaid on the room in front of them. There is no app, no login, no portal. That fact is already raising real questions about how much financial data these AI systems get to see and who's accountable for protecting it. Our industry doesn't yet have an answer to those questions. Regardless, the capability is coming… and once it arrives, most of what fills our calendar today stops being a part of our job. It just becomes a part of the infrastructure, that someone still has to build and oversee, but it's no longer where the client relationship lies.
What's left is the part AI can't do: knowing when to show up, and how to read the room once you're there. And showing up means calling first, not waiting for the client to call me. After all, a "call" in 20 years is likely our own hologram appearing in their living room, their office, right there next to them. And ready to talk.
It's not a meeting on a schedule. It becomes a proactive response to a moment, one that one of my own tools discovers before I'd otherwise think to look. A business sale. A divorce. A death. A 25-year-old getting real control over money for the first time. A family business quietly changing hands between generations. My AI assistant can flag that something shifted. It cannot sit across from a grieving spouse or a nervous 25-year-old and know what they need to hear that day.
That's still mine.
The Boston deal is set to push the PE-backed consolidator past $187 billion amid a broad RIA M&A slowdown and a potential shift in its ownership.
Advisors with clients who own second homes in New York City face fresh uncertainty as the city seeks a stay and plans an appeal.
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