{"id":4209,"date":"2023-10-05T10:58:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T17:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2023-10-05T11:03:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T18:03:46","slug":"ai-tools-for-financial-advisors-are-already-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/articles\/2023\/10\/05\/ai-tools-for-financial-advisors-are-already-here\/","title":{"rendered":"AI tools for financial advisors are already here"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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From meeting prep to constructing financial plans, here\u2019s how advisors are making use of new tech\n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Advisors\u2019 work has changed significantly over the last two decades, with digitalization reducing paperwork and the need for support staff, leaving time to serve more clients. But that evolution may be nothing compared to what\u2019s coming as advisors make use of new artificial intelligence tools.<\/p>\n

Jason Pereira, partner and senior financial consultant with Woodgate Financial Inc. in Toronto, said AI is \u201cgoing to accelerate that trend at an exponential level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pereira, speaking last weekend at the Institute for Advanced Financial Planners\u2019 annual symposium in Edmonton, outlined the AI tools advisors can already use to cut down on time spent writing emails, reviewing documents, following up on client requests and developing financial plans.<\/p>\n

While the tools may be unsettling to some advisors who see a threat from technology replacing primary tasks, Pereira said it presents an opportunity for advisors to focus on clients.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe future is not the robotic,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s us being the bridge between the robotic and the human.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Client meetings<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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With more client meetings taking place on screen, Pereira is using an AI meeting assistant called Fathom that produces an interactive transcript of the call. Advisors can bookmark items \u2014 a trade request, for example \u2014 during the call to retrieve after.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows me to stay laser-focused on the conversation and never have to look away, because taking meeting notes can be an interruption to the personal connection,\u201d Pereira said.<\/p>\n

Fathom also produces a summary, with links to the point in the video when a topic was discussed, and that summary can be copied into a customer relationship management (CRM) program. Fathom can also interact with other platforms. Pereira\u2019s team uses Slack, so he can push the trade request from the Fathom meeting summary to Slack, where his team will pick it up to process. They receive the snippet of text, he said, as well as the embedded video they can watch to verify the instructions.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also technology to help advisors cut down on the time they spend preparing for meetings. Pereira described a U.K.-based platform called Sifa (he disclosed that he\u2019s on the company board) as a ChatGPT specifically for financial advisors.<\/p>\n

Sifa allows advisors to upload client information \u2014 financial planning questionnaires, mortgage statements, insurance contracts \u2014 and interact with it. The platform can aggregate data from different places. Once the data is there, an advisor could ask what a client\u2019s house is worth, for example, or what their retirement goal is. Right before a meeting, they may want to ask for the names of the client\u2019s children.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Financial plans and client documents\n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Financial planning software is also adopting AI. Pereira uses Conquest Planning, which has introduced a strategic advice manager \u2014 SAM \u2014 that can build a financial plan based on the client data entered. Pereira pointed to a study from U.S. financial planner Michael Kitces that found the average financial plan takes 10 hours to construct.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about getting financial plans in the hands of more people, one of the big obstacles, of course, is the time and effort it takes to produce one,\u201d Pereira said.<\/p>\n

Another tool called FP Alpha, which is currently only available in the U.S., allows advisors to upload a client\u2019s tax return and receive a summary tax profile and tax optimization tips, Pereira said. They can also upload wills and power of attorney and trust documents, creating a summary of the entire estate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all talk about tax planning, but being able to have a visual conversation with clients about this is a great starting point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Most advisors use DocuSign now, but Pereira said there\u2019s still the risk of clients just hitting the sign button without understanding the document. To address the problem, he said DocuSign is now providing AI summaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is incredibly valuable because it can extract the important pieces of information, put them right in front of the person [and] get them to understand what it is they\u2019re doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Conquering the blank page<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Whether it\u2019s writing an email, a blog post or a PowerPoint slide, getting started can be the hardest part. Pereira uses a site called Perplexity to help. The AI search engine allows you to search a topic (How to register a business in Canada, for example), and receive a list of steps that includes sourcing \u2014 a starting point from which to answer a client question.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin a few seconds, I can produce content that otherwise would have taken me a while to think through \u2014 to basically compose, to format, to edit,\u201d Pereira said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a shortcut.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another platform called ChatPDF allows you to upload a document (the Income Tax Act, for example) and ask the platform questions.<\/p>\n

Pereira said he uses Grammarly to check spelling and grammar in emails, but the platform now has an AI bot that goes much further, scanning an email for intent and tone, and providing recommendations for how to reply. While he wouldn\u2019t use it to respond to a client\u2019s portfolio question, Pereira said the tool \u201chas cut down on my less cognitively burdensome emails.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Safety and compliance<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Businesses and governments around the world have raised privacy concerns about ChatGPT, with some organizations banning its use.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not ever put client information into ChatGPT or any open protocol,\u201d Pereira said.<\/p>\n

Some of the tools, such as Sifa and Conquest, are specifically for the financial industry, while others, such as Fathom, are for more general use. Pereira said it\u2019s up to advisors to evaluate the platforms\u2019 security and make a case to compliance.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also up to advisors to take what these new platforms provide and use it to coach clients \u2014 not to abdicate their financial planning knowledge to the technology. If financial planning software says a client should start taking CPP at 70, for example, you have to be able to explain why.<\/p>\n

As technology makes more tasks easier, Pereira said advisors need to spend time understanding clients\u2019 personal biases and hangups around money \u2014 the things that get in the way of following advice \u2014 and develop customized plans based on clients\u2019 behaviour.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you just need to change the advice, because it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s 100% optimal,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s 85% optimal but it\u2019s what they\u2019ll accept and it\u2019s what gets them what they want, that\u2019s really what matters.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Disclosure: Advisor.ca was a media sponsor of the IAFP symposium. Part of the sponsorship included transportation costs. No coverage was guaranteed in exchange for the sponsorship.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This article was written by Mark Burgess and first published on September 28, 2023 in Advisor\u2019s Edge<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From meeting prep to constructing financial plans, here\u2019s how advisors are making use of new tech Advisors\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,44],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4209"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4224,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions\/4224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iafp.ca\/planners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}