At the MarketCounsel Summit on Dec. 5, Joel Bruckenstein, President of Technology Tools for Today, moderated a discussion titled “Driving ROI in Tech: Integrating Generative AI and Expert Systems” with Craig Iskowitz, CEO of Ezra Group; Oleg Tishkevich, CEO of Invent; and Brian McLaughlin, President of Orion Advisor Tech.
How Advisors Can Use AI In Business
Addressing how advisors can use AI in their businesses, Iskowitz responded that the “real change will be in next best actions.” With this technology, AI determines next best actions for an advisor to take for an account on an ongoing basis.
Explaining that the technology was implemented by Morgan Stanley a decade ago, Iskowitz said that advisors using this technology, “will be exponentially better at their jobs, growing their business and keeping clients happy. The downside is that it will turn advisors into Uber drivers because it will tell them what to do.” Iskowitz said that advisors in this situation should move up the value chain.
Bruckenstein added that AI will aid the industry with the large number of retiring advisors and the resulting lack of talent. Agreeing that advisors must move up the value chain, he said that advisors using AI will be able to provide more services for the same amount of money.
Data Privacy
“AI works better if it ingests massive amounts of data,” said Tishkevich, noting that there’s a risk that a large language model (LLM) can return data that’s not relevant to a particular client or a firm, potentially generating a regulatory issue. “Data scoping issues need to be solved well and articulated well in order for this to be OK from a compliance perspective.”
McLaughlin spoke of progress toward a solution through LLMs that are approximately 80% trained, then turned over to an end firm to complete the training. He is optimistic that technology will solve privacy concerns. “The speed at which we’re accelerating now is ridiculous,” he said.
Talent And Jobs
Bruckenstein asked the speakers how firms will find employees with the skillsets appropriate for implementing AI in business.
Tishkevich responded that recent graduates are already receiving education on AI. According to his sources at a large software firm, in a few years coders will not be able to find jobs unless they incorporate AI-generated code into their work.
Iskowitz added an optimistic outlook on employment: “I don’t think any particular jobs will be eliminated, but it’s going to eliminate manual processes.” He believes that employees will be free to work on higher value tasks and especially expects AI to result in greater efficiencies in customer service.
Can AI Improve Society?
Bruckenstein then directed the conversation toward how AI may help generate social improvements such as a more inclusive society or financial literacy.
Tishkevich pointed out that people have already had greater access to financial information in the era of search engines, but search engines did not raise the level of financial decisions. He sees AI’s role as making financial advice more accessible, but at the end of the day, the client will still want to speak to a person. He added that AI can help drive asset management strategies.
Iskowitz predicted that in the next couple of years an AI-based advisor will become available. “It will know more about you than any advisor could know. It’s going to know more about you than you know.” This advisor will be able to review your data to determine your risk tolerance and design a portfolio better suited to your needs.
Julius Buchanan, Editor in Chief at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jbuchanan@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
