The race is on to build ultimate AI ‘operating system’ for advisors

From independent RIAs to broker-dealer and wirehouse giants, firms are racing to stitch together note-taking bots, CRMs, planning software and custodial platforms into a single, intelligent workflow engine that can add meaningful efficiency to an advisor’s practice. Industry executives say whoever cracks that integrated ecosystem first could own the next decade of advisory technology.

“We’ll have an entire ecosystem,” said Lauren Williams, co-founder of ProsperPlan Wealth and an advisor with NewEdge Advisors. “I really think someone’s going to bring this ecosystem together where these primary tools are just going to work, and they’re going to do exactly what you need without having to think about it.”

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Williams spoke at an InvestmentNews roundtable titled “Harnessing AI in Wealth Management,” alongside Channing Olson, private client chief operating officer at Wealthspire, and Joe Di Vito, financial advisor and managing director of the Di Vito Consulting Group at RBC Wealth Management. All three described firms moving beyond experimental chatbots and point solutions toward tightly integrated AI “co-pilots” embedded in everyday systems such as email, CRM, planning software and custodial platforms.

Williams cited her work with Jump AI, which she views as a front-runner in building that advisor-centric stack. The firm is developing tools that live inside an advisor’s email, automatically creating action items and pushing them into the CRM, while also turning meeting transcripts into structured data that can flow directly into planning tools such as RightCapital, where “you can press a button and it’ll update the plan,” she said.

“Right now, it’s going to be a race to the top of who creates this AI ecosystem that wealth advisors live in,” Williams said. “Jump is really leading the way for me — they have a 150-person team and that’s really what they’re focused on, meeting with advisors to determine how they can make their operational workflows more efficient and add value.”

At Wealthspire, Olson is running a parallel race—this one focused on wiring AI all the way through onboarding and back-office servicing. The firm is rolling out JIFFY.ai to enable “straight-through digital onboarding, account opening and servicing with the three primary custodians that we work with,” tightly connected to Wealthspire’s Salesforce CRM and a client portal, she said.

READ MORE: For the month of January, IN shone a spotlight on AI in wealth. Check out all our coverage here.

Her goal for 2026 is straightforward: “Eliminate the double entry.” Today, client service staff can spend hours rekeying data between systems. Olson expects the new stack to “fundamentally change the way we work with clients, give them a better experience [and] speed up the time it takes to bring on a new client or open a new account.” Just as important, she added, is what it does for staff: “It’s not about eliminating staff, it’s about getting them to a place where their highest and best use is with the client.”

Di Vito has embraced note-taking technology and said it has made him far more efficient in preparing for meetings, particularly when it comes to reviewing historical documents without having to go through each file manually.

His message to advisors is that AI will be invaluable as a tool, but it is not going to make human knowledge obsolete.

“I heard 30 years ago that the internet would crush our industry, but I don’t believe this will replace us,” he said. “I have done several things personally with AI and I find problems all the time, so there is no substitute for knowledge and experience. You can use AI as a tool, but you have to confirm that the output is accurate.”

Asked to look ahead and predict how AI would influence the industry in five years, all the panelists said the pace of change makes five years feel like light years away.

Olson said traditional multi-year tech roadmaps are no longer fit for purpose. Where firms once revisited portfolio management systems and CRMs every three to four years, AI is compressing that cycle to roughly six months, she argued.

“With AI, the reality is the lifecycle is every six months,” Olson said, adding that organizations must now be in a state of “continuous improvement.” Advisors who don’t develop that competency, she warned, “will be left behind.”

Williams emphasized AI’s role as a creative accelerator for individual advisors. She described producing a bespoke retirement handbook for a corporate client in minutes using generative AI, then refining the piece in Adobe before delivering it as a finished workbook. She has also used AI, she noted, to help redesign her home exterior and office space.

“In five years, we’re all creators,” she said, arguing that advisors who embrace AI will be able to rapidly generate customized planning materials, visualizations and client experiences that previously required extensive design and content support. For Williams, the priority is not scale for its own sake, but elevating the quality and clarity of financial planning for a defined client base.

Di Vito said that regardless of the pace of technological change, the solution he’ll use is the one that makes him a better “quarterback” at his desk for his clients. The core question firms should be asking, he said, is: “What can you do to make me faster, stronger, more scalable in my chair than I am today?”

“I think AI will shape that, and I am happy that RBC Wealth Management has prioritized this,” he added. “That was one of my due diligence questions when I moved here 17 years ago. I wanted to know they had the technology and infrastructure to support my growth.”

For U.S. financial advisors, the message from the panel was clear: AI is quickly becoming the connective tissue of the advisory tech stack. The firms that win, they suggested, will be those that use it not to replace advisors, but to free them to spend more time in front of clients — with better data, better tools and better workflows at their fingertips.

This article is part of our Monthly Spotlight series, which in January focuses on AI in Wealth. Full coverage can be found here.