While buzzy AI tools are hard to miss in wealth management, finding tangible ways financial advisors are using them is harder to find.
Advisory firms are implementing artificial intelligence to help with client servicing–like using ChatGPT tools to create blog posts and send out emails. But the technology is still in its infancy in wealth management. While AI tools can even help pick out birthday gifts to send to clients, they have struggled to move beyond simple client communication.
“Most advisors are not doing as much as they should,” said Joel Bruckenstein, founder of the wealth management consultancy T3. “In order for them to benefit, they need to spend a little time learning about it.”
Compared with other financial segments, like asset managers that analyze millions of data points every day to predict market movements, AI tools still seem to be an afterthought for wealth managers.
“Some of the really large firms are shying away right now until there's more guidance from regulators,” Bruckenstein said Thursday on the sidelines of the T3:Technology Tools for Today conference in Las Vegas. “Regulators want to know if there are any biases in there? What's the data set being used to make those recommendations? The same holds true with financial planning.”
Alison Dooher, managing director at Charles Schwab, said most firms are “dipping carefully” into the AI ocean. Schwab is currently building data models to harness insights from client data in-house but is diligent to stay within bounds of current regulations. “We like the cautious approach given the important role that [financial advice] plays in clients’ lives,” she said.
Educating advisors about the potential upsides, and pitfalls, is an important first step, said Dooher, adding that data privacy will become a hot-button issue as the technology evolves.
The tools have certainly matured in recent years. Startups are now finding ways to take on more complex advisory tasks, like onboarding and portfolio recommendations, tools that weren’t available even six months ago. More than one-third of Americans (37%) are interested in using AI to help them manage their money, according to a recent CNBC survey,
Wealthtech startup Powder is trying to become a first mover. The company provides an AI-powered co-advisor that helps aggregate financial data using generative AI. The next wave of the technology could evolve into “robo-advisor 2.0s” that recommend portfolios and can chat with clients, Powder’s CEO Kanishk Parashar said in an interview.
Advisors will be able to produce higher quality work because the simpler, more attainable tasks are automated away, he said. “The human is still in charge," he said."It's not replacing anybody.”
When asked if AI will ever take the place of a human advisor, Parashar said it wouldn't be possible for at least a decade or two. “Advice is a trust business,” he said.