When I was a young advisor, my favorite piece of technology was a solar calculator I picked up for cheap at a department store. Yes, these were “the old days.”
I remember leaving client meetings and heading back in my car at night, replaying the conversation and crunching some numbers. I’d hold that calculator up to the dome light just to get enough “sun” to make it work.
At the time, that was the technology we had. It wasn’t fancy. But it helped me think more clearly. It helped me prepare. And it helped me show up better for my clients.
AI is doing something very similar today, just on a much bigger scale. It’s helping the advisors I work with every day operate in ways we never would have imagined. It’s making them more productive with their time and more thoughtful in how they prepare for interactions with clients. Put simply: it’s unlocking new possibilities for how advisors work.
But there are still things it can’t do. It can’t build trust. It doesn’t ask the important questions. It can’t truly understand what matters most to the family sitting across the table.
Whether you’re in the age of solar calculators or AI capabilities, that fundamental part of our work was and still is human.
At Thrivent, we’re embracing AI and integrating it directly into our advice process, with one goal in mind: creating more meaningful relationships between our advisors and their clients.
Our advisors are already using AI in practical ways. They use it to help prepare for meetings, quickly capture notes from conversations, lay out next steps and stay organized in a fast-moving day. On average, they’re saving about four hours each week.
That time matters.
The goal isn’t to remove the advisor from the process. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s about lifting them above the tasks that can be handled by technology so they can focus on what matters most.
What advisors do when they get that time back is the differentiator. They invest it in deeper relationships. They ask better questions. They help clients navigate decisions that venture beyond finances and into their values, motivations and dreams – the things that make them human.
To succeed in this moment, we must do more than adopt new technology. We must use it in a way that reinforces the human side of what we do.
Advisors are the heart of this industry. Financial decisions require empathy, context and understanding. Those are qualities AI simply can’t replicate.
That’s why using this technology isn’t coming at the expense of advisors. We’re continuing to invest in people by hiring more than 600 new financial advisors in 2025, and we’re already on our way to another significant hiring total in 2026.
With a wave of talented and motivated advisors joining the ranks, AI allows us to extend our reach even further and serve more clients. Advisors are the ones who bring those relationships to life.
If you take a 30,000-foot view of our industry’s history, this is not the first technological shift that’s changed the way we work – and it would be naïve to believe it’s the last.
The best advisors have always found ways to use new tools to enhance their craft. AI will continue to advance, and we’ll keep evolving alongside it. The goal is to harness its value without sacrificing the human connection at the center of everything we do.
Because here’s what I know to be true:
AI won’t stay up late waiting to hear if a client’s newborn is a boy or a girl.
It won’t sit with someone and offer comfort after they’ve lost a spouse.
It won’t share a hug with an overjoyed client celebrating their long-awaited retirement.
That part of this work runs on something else entirely. It runs on purpose. And purpose runs on people.
Advisors who embrace both – using technology wisely while leading with purpose – are the ones who will continue to shape the future of our industry.
Nick Cecere is executive vice president and chief distribution officer of Thrivent, a Fortune 500 financial services company.
LPL Financial and Raymond James also add independent advisors from Osaic and Edward Jones in Michigan and Arizona.
The SEC-registered RIA advises on more than $1 billion in client assets, with no advisory fee through 2027 and no human financial advisors.
95.8% of house trades were winners. For clients? The SEC says just 14.9%.
The complaint says Duolingo added friction on purpose, then lied about it.
The four wirehouse firms lost 1,449 experienced advisors and recruited 932 in the first six months of the year, according to Diamond Consultants.
Knighthead Life entered the market with a competitive MYGA. A strong launch earned advisor confidence and paved the way for FIAs.
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
