For example, an advisor may turn to AI to help spot non-standard behavior patterns when auditing financial transactions. A firm could also use AI to distill thousands of pages of tax law into specific signals that tweak portfolio blends to optimize tax efficiency. Data from a major agricultural event in one country could be fed into an AI engine to impact real time investment decisions here at home.
From Laggards To Leaders
This bionic advisor can deploy AI to monitor and scan a range of data sets before providing buy/sell signals to any number of sector and security variables. With AI’s built-in capacity for machine learning, a wealth manager effectively has a 24/7 online supervisor to ensure a portfolio stays on strategy while the advisor dedicates more time to client-facing activities. Successful AI solutions of the future will likely combine the strengths of both humans and machines to perform tasks more effectively than either of them could do individually.
According to a recent PwC study, advisors will even be able to clone their client base soon with AI “twins” to role-play outcomes before making investment decisions.
While some firms will see reductions in head count, new roles will also emerge. The ability of wealth managers to evolve in their professional roles, along with their analysts and data scientists, into high-functioning AI-driven business teams will prove critical for their future success.
To paraphrase, Lao-Tzu, the journey to digital leadership begins with a single step: For wealth managers hobbled by the financial industry tradition of “waiting to see what the competition does,” the most important step forward will be the first one.
Steve Scruton is president of Broadridge Advisor Solutions.