AI can give clients access to information and help them better understand their options before meeting with an advisor. But while AI can provide the raw information, a financial advisor can help provide the context and execution needed to put those options into practice.
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AJ, we read articles and listen to podcasts all the time about what jobs AI will replace. How does this impact financial advisors and clients?
Yeah, it’s a good question. Personally, I’m a big fan of AI and what it can do for us, and I think also what it can do for clients. I think the three of us use it in some way, shape, or form, probably on a daily basis.
What I mean by that it’s good for clients, I think we can all appreciate when we have a well-informed client that comes in and knows what they’re looking for, what problem they’re trying to solve. And so, I think as an advisor, if you have that more informed client from the get-go, I think things just move smoothly.
I have an example of this. We’re working with a client right now, and she works for a generative AI healthcare tech company, private company, and they’re doing a tender offer right now. So, she has a deadline to get some of this stuff done. In reality, this is a three- or four-meeting process to help her understand how the vesting periods work, modeling out the alternative minimum tax on the exercise, and then ultimately how you get liquidity on the back end.
Well, she had typed all these parameters and some of her concerns into Claude, and she sent me a summary two days before our meeting and said, here are my options as I understand them. And I read this, and it got us probably eight steps of the way through a 10-step process before we even had the first meeting on this.
So, Claude was really good for describing three different options and giving raw information, and our job was to provide context as to, okay, if you go this route, how does this work in practice? How does this feel tomorrow, and how does this feel a year or five years from now?
So, AI gives you raw information and options, and our role as your advisor is to provide context and execution.
Yeah, that’s exactly right.