AI Will Eliminate Wealth Management Jobs. That May Be a Good Thing
Will AI agents ever replace human financial advisors?
Experts who have debated the question broadly agree that the human connection between advisors and clients will endure in the AI age. That doesn’t necessarily hold true, however, for middle- and back-office staff. Will the technology decimate operational roles that have provided meaningful (if more menial) employment opportunities to thousands? It’s likely, experts agreed, but there’s a silver lining.
“It’s a legitimate question and an important one for advisor firm leaders and industry stakeholders to contemplate,” Altruist Chief Operating Officer Mazi Bahadori told Advisor Upside in the wake of his firm’s market-moving AI tax planning tool launch. “We’ve been in the headlines recently for our Hazel platform. So, we’ve seen what advisory firms do when they don’t need their people working on repetitive operational tasks. What they do and don’t do may surprise you.”
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An Unavoidable Question
What they don’t do, generally, is rush to fire staff whose roles have been made redundant, at least not on the Altruist platform. Instead, firms have redeployed and reinvested in their people, moving them to strategic projects and even encouraging staff to get licensed and start producing new business. Layoffs do happen, Bahadori noted, but the base response among RIAs embracing AI isn’t clearing house.
Anthropic, April, Altruist, Vestwell, LPL, Orion and others have all launched new AI-powered products or raised significant funding to do so. All have said their intentions are to empower, not displace, financial advisors.
As for their staff, “I agree 100% that forward-thinking firms who embrace AI are finding new roles and opportunities for their people,” April CEO Ben Borodach told Advisor Upside. April’s tools help financial advisors with tax insights and the filing process, which can be outsourced or led by a firm’s own CPAs.
“We’ve seen this play out among clients who already had a tax team before adopting our platform,” Borodach observed. “Before, they may have had multiple staffers who did nothing other than keep up with the tedious work of filling out and filing 1040s. Our platform significantly cuts down the effort needed to do that, freeing people to refocus on real planning. It’s not a replacement story.”
A Boon for Clients?
One downstream effect of AI implementation, added April President Raj Doshi, should be an elevated client service experience. It could also bring advanced planning to more investors, especially in areas such as estate planning, management of concentrated stock portfolios and goal-setting in the household context.
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