Over the last few years, our industry has settled on a refrain when it comes to AI: “It will support human-led financial advice, but not replace it.”
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That’s true as far as it goes. But we need to be real about how artificial intelligence is already affecting wealth management.
In a recent survey from Credit Karma, 66% of respondents said they used generative AI for financial advice — with that percentage rising to 82% among both millennials and Generation Z. The majority of respondents, the survey found, were happy with the chatbot-generated results.
That was true for my wife and I when we used AI to create a month-by-month budget for a small farm-to-table restaurant we own. After uploading vendor summaries, profit and loss and menu data, it took me minutes to rebuild the menu and create a margin analysis for every item. Before AI, that would have taken weeks of work.
If people are willing to trust AI with decisions that affect their livelihoods, it should be obvious where this is headed. I’m not saying the entire wealth management industry should roll over and give up. But we do need to be smarter about how to win.
READ MORE: Despite AI’s allure, client relationships remain the crux of advisors’ work
Financial outcomes are the bottom line
The relationship side of the financial advice equation should be familiar to anyone reading this. An AI tool can’t sit with a client who is grieving a loss, anxious about the future or just frustrated and overwhelmed by uncertainty. Showing up at these times is still a huge part of an advisor’s work, and it comes with fiduciary responsibility and ownership that no AI tool can take on.
But it’s not everything.
If I ran an advisory firm right now and wanted to keep my business from losing out to commodified AI, I would focus on client relationships, yes, but also financial outcomes. You can know every aspect of your client’s life, but if their estate plan is weak or they’re barely treading water in reaching their financial goals, they’re going to fire you.
READ MORE: Advisors say this is their toughest challenge. Here’s how they’re solving it
AI-fueled personalization
Many advisors are still operating as if that isn’t true. They deliver planning and investment work that is only average, coast on market lift and point to performance as proof of value.
But just think about the range of services comprehensive financial advice should include, including insurance policy reviews, beneficiary and TOD checks, verification that estate planning documents match account titling, ongoing rebalancing, analysis of held-away accounts and company benefits, and oversight of cash balances.
Before AI, doing this level of personalized work for every client simply didn’t scale. It took too long, cost too much and depended on heroic effort. That’s no longer the case. AI can monitor meeting notes, documents, communications, CRM systems and account data. It flags issues early, pulls together what advisors need to address them, drafts next steps and assembles emails with relevant context.
With AI, insurance reviews happen, tax planning is proactive, estate and beneficiary issues don’t get missed and advisors don’t rebuild the wheel every time.
Recently, I got one of those calls you never want to get. A longtime client’s spouse had been diagnosed with a rare, aggressive cancer. Best-case prognosis was measured in months. Possibly weeks. These clients had complex financial lives involving multiple accounts, layered titling, significant assets and exposure to their state’s estate taxes.
In the past, reviewing history, identifying estate risks, coordinating next steps and drafting a plan would have taken days if not weeks. Time they simply didn’t have. Instead, I worked with my firm’s new AI platform (which made news of its own earlier this month) to prioritize decisions and help me come up with a clear set of next steps.
That same day, the family received a clear plan for moving forward.
READ MORE: How wealth management firms are consolidating in 2025
RIAs can punch above their weight
AI has also flipped the narrative of the past several years that says the only way to grow your business is through acquisition. A smaller RIA with the right automations can now punch far above its weight.
AI expands financial advisors’ capacity to personalize, to follow through and to deliver better outcomes at scale. It doesn’t replace the human judgment, accountability and presence clients actually hire you for.
AI is not here to make humans unnecessary. It’s here to make them unstoppable.
