Mariner’s Hugo AI uncovered $22B in client assets, says Marty Bicknell

Mariner’s Hugo AI has ‘uncovered’ $22 billion in assets, says Marty Bicknell.

The team of AI agents deployed by Mariner Wealth Advisors has helped the mega-RIA find $22 billion in client assets that its existing advisors were unaware of, explained Mariner CEO Marty Bicknell at last week’s Schwab IMPACT conference in Boston. 

Bicknell was speaking on a panel with Humanity Labs CEO Andrei Pop, whose startup announced a partnership with Mariner in July to deploy 700 AI agents across the RIA’s operations. Mariner pays about $35 million per year to Humanity Labs for its AI workforce, or $175 million in total across their five-year partnership.  

At Schwab IMPACT, Bicknell said “Hugo” is the name given for Mariner’s AI agent workforce.

“Hugo has uncovered $22 billion worth of assets in our current book of business. $22 billion dollars we didn't know about, Hugo has helped us uncover that and has helped us understand what the needs of each one of those opportunities are, and who inside the organization is best to go have those conversations.” 

Bicknell said that AI is critical to helping Mariner scale to its goal of serving 500,000 households by the end of 2028. He added that Mariner currently serves 70,000 households, and the firm’s website lists over $632 billion in assets advised by Mariner and its affiliates.  

When asked to follow up on his $22 billion in assets remark, Bicknell mentioned previous employer 401(k) plans for clients as one windfall uncovered by Mariner’s Hugo AI. 

“We have 5,500 closely-held businesses inside our organization. Inside each one of those companies, there's a CEO, a president, and a CFO — there's people inside the organization and opportunities inside those organizations that obviously can create that,” said Bicknell. 

 “Think from a retirement plan standpoint. A client that may have changed jobs and they've got several 401(k) plans left behind of former employers. Being able to uncover things that, frankly, the advisor should have been able to uncover on their own, but no.” 

Investors in Humanity Labs include Google Ventures and Vestigo Ventures, a firm founded by former LPL Financial CEO Mark Casady. Former Osaic executive Dimple Shah departed the broker-dealer to join Humanity Labs in June as its head of wealth management. 

“Our tax software, estate planning software, the investment process, the CRM, [those] in the business know from an RIA's perspective how many things we have to sign into on a daily basis. Hugo, the digital workforce, does that for our teams. It goes through all the information and all the data all of these components have and narrows it down and delivers it on a silver platter to our advisors. So they can do what only they can do, which is the trust aspect of our business,” said Bicknell. 

“The trust aspect of our business is not going away. Only a human can deliver that,” he added. 

Despite the return-on-investment outlined by Bicknell, most RIAs have not yet adopted AI to handle tasks autonomously. A new survey from Schwab found only 7% of advisors said they use agentic AI–systems that make decisions and act independently within workflows. 

Junior staff at Mariner have accelerated towards advisor roles at a quicker pace within the firm thanks to its Hugo AI workforce, according to Bicknell.  

“We have 200 client associates inside our organization, client service assistants inside our organization. Because of what we're doing from a digital workforce perspective, we have 80 of them who have now raised their hand to become advisors,” he said.