The Modern Advisor Meets Modern Technology – Part 4
Unless you’ve been marooned on a desert island for the past year and a half, you’ve no doubt been bombarded by breathless headlines about the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022, the AI hype machine has been running at full speed. Everything from cars to colas (yes, even colas, as Coca-Cola launched a new beverage created with the help of artificial intelligence) is now promising a bold new AI-powered future. For the modern financial advisor, separating hype from utility can be a challenge, but at Advisory Services Network we look at the promises of AI-powered advisor tech through a single starting point: efficiency.
As we discussed in Part 3 of this 4-part blog series, there are crucial aspects of the advisor/client relationship that cannot and should not be replaced by technology. However, there are also myriad mundane tasks where AI tools can be tremendous time savers. Additionally, there are AI tools that can assist in collecting and collating client data during the onboarding process, monitoring for unusual activity in client accounts, and producing transcripts of client meetings while automatically adding key points to an advisor’s preferred CRM. While this may sound like we’re leaning into the hype, this barely scratches the surface of the ways in which AI can assist an advisor on a day-to-day basis. Many of these tools hold the promise of dramatically reducing the time an advisory firm spends on non-client-facing tasks, making the back and middle office more streamlined and efficient so the advisor can do what they do best.
Here we once again return to the human aspect of this discussion. Ultimately, clients hire you because they value the personal connection and expertise you offer.
For all the exciting advancements that AI portends, the greatest enhancement any AI tool should make is to your calendar, freeing up more hours for you to spend with your clients, answering their questions, helping them through challenges, celebrating their milestones and successes, and maintaining that trust and rapport we mentioned in our previous post—something that technology cannot create or repair if it were ever to be damaged.
You no doubt have questions about AI and your practice, and here at ASN we have a team of experts ready to help you find the right answers. Just as every client is unique, so too is every advisory firm. We would be happy to help you and your colleagues identify a tech approach and a level of AI involvement that works for you, your team, and your clients.
Thank you for reading our tech-focused blog series, and watch for more updates from the ASN team.