As AI notetaking booms at RIAs, what guardrails are being put in place?

As the AI race continues to play out across the wealth tech space, one RIA leader says notetaking technology has quickly and conclusively proven its value for advisors – but firms must also be mindful of the risks.

"I think that notetakers are the most popular adoption of AI in our space ... From an ROI perspective, you can see the value so quickly with the note takers," Integrated Partners President Andree Mohr told InvestmentNews in a recent interview.

"I think anybody who isn't using one at this point is going to start falling behind, not only from a time perspective, but from a personalization of their client engagement perspective," says Mohr, who took the president role at the LPL-affiliated national RIA almost exactly a year ago.

Integrated Partners' AI notetaking journey began last year when representatives from the firm attended an AI conference in Las Vegas. It was there that they had their encounter with Jump, which had recently completed a $20 million Series A funding round to enhance its capabilities and build out its network of RIA and broker-dealer partnerships.

While there had already been some internal conversations about notetakers and AI at Integrated Partners, Mohr says seeing Jump and other software in action underscored the potential boost to advisors' productivity and client relationships.

"[That was when] we really dove into a better understanding what it looked like and how we could offer it across our organization, but still meet our AI and compliance policies," Mohr recalls.

When considering its options for an AI notetaking solution, Mohr said Integrated Partners was mindful of how clients' personally identifiable information, or PII, would be captured. Given the rise in data security concerns among investors and regulators, the firm had to ask tough questions around how AI notetakers used the conversations they record – whether the data end up in a closed system, for example, or if a potentially sensitive bit of conversation gets used in a wider pool of data to train large language models.

"We also wanted to ensure that we provided a fail safe for our advisors, [notifying when a meeting] is being recorded," she adds, emphasizing the importance of client consent and awareness. "On the usability side, we wanted to know how it will integrate with our CRM and other systems."

Ultimately, the firm implemented Jump's notetaking technology, rolling it out last summer after beta testing with a select circle of users. Mohr says the impact has been dramatic, with advisors moving away from "chicken scratch notes" to more detailed documentation and recordings.

Aside from cultivating deeper relationships, she estimates advisors using the software have been able to save between two and 10 hours a week, depending on the complexity of the cases involved, how many meetings an advisor has, and other factors.

"[Junior advisors] can be more involved in the conversation," she says. "They can even start to take over components of the meeting, because they don't have to be sitting there taking down notes the whole time ... There isn't as much worry about being compliant."

To ensure responsible use, Mohr says Integrated Partners engaged an external firm to update its AI policy and set up a training program, ensuring all advisors are aware of it. That includes a series of questions at the end, which advisors must answer before getting access to the Jump software.

"The other piece of it was having a direct line to the team at Jump, so that when our advisors get set up with the software, they have an additional conversation about the compliance pieces," she says. "As they go through the demos and setup process, they get additional reinforcement of what's in our policy and what they did within their training."

While Integrated Partners has a complete AI notetaking policy in place, Mohr says the firm is keeping the door open for changes in the future. As notetakers and other AI technologies continue to evolve, she says the firm has set up a dedicated group to review different vendors and ensure its compliance adapts to keep up.

"It's always an ongoing review," she says. "I would highly recommend any RIA that is implementing new technologies – especially AI, where things are changing so quickly – to have a committee that can review and assess different features and ensure that those still fall within the parameters of your policy."