AI boosts efficiency by automating tasks like note-taking and CRM updates.
Client-facing AI tools improve service with faster, personalized responses.
Smart AI use gives RIAs a competitive edge while preserving data privacy.
Let’s face it, artificial intelligence can be polarizing. It sparks excitement, anxiety, and everything in between. In financial services, where relationships and trust are paramount, some advisors hear “AI” and think “replacement.” But what we’ve found is the opposite.
At Innovative Wealth Building, our RIA, we’ve found AI to be one of the most exciting and impactful tools shaping the future of financial advice. It won’t replace the empathy, nuance, or experience that define great advising. But it can support and streamline the parts of our job that drain time and energy without adding value.
Rather than waiting for the technology to become “perfect,” we’ve chosen to lean in, and experiment, build, refine, and learn. We’ve discovered that AI isn’t a replacement for human advisors. But it can absolutely be a powerful teammate if you take the time to understand how to work with it.
Advisors who embrace AI strategically with caution, creativity and client care in mind stand to gain an incredible edge. Not someday. Today.
How We Started Small and Scaled Smart
Our journey with AI started with the basics: a calendar that was too full and a to-do list that never ended. One of our earliest and most consistent uses of AI is note-taking and follow-up management. We use AI tools to help us recap meeting notes, extract action items, update our CRM, and create follow-up task lists. That alone has increased our consistency and freed up time for higher-value work.
It has also helped us deliver a smoother, more responsive experience for clients. They feel heard, and our follow-ups feel thoughtful and timely. That small change has strengthened relationships in ways we didn’t anticipate.
We also use AI to help organize our client meetings. It allows us to revisit previous conversations quickly and draft upcoming agendas based on seasonality, pending items, and client-specific goals. For example, at the end of each client meeting, we often foreshadow what we’ll cover next time. AI helps us remember and incorporate that into the agenda, along with timely data like tax deadlines or investment updates.
Marketing is another area where AI has proven its value. This can be especially for smaller firms without full-time content teams. Content creation is another area where AI has become a valuable partner. Whether we’re crafting newsletters, building checklists or scripting social media posts, AI helps us generate and polish ideas faster. That’s not to say it replaces voice or vision. But when you know what to ask, and know how to shape the output, AI becomes a creative partner — one that saves us hours each week.
Client-Facing Tools and Efficiency Gains
We’ve gone a step further by creating client-facing digital tools powered by AI and automation. Take our lead capture system: Prospects fill out a digital form with basic information, and they receive a custom report, often within minutes, based on both the inputs and how we’ve trained the system. The product looks personalized and thoughtful, and it’s scalable, consistent. What’s more, it requires almost no human intervention once the backend is set up.
Another powerful use has been document analysis. When we receive a client’s investment statement, tax return or annuity prospectus, we can strip out personal identifiers and ask AI to summarize the key data points. For example, we created an annuity review template that allows us to input a prospectus and receive a report on fees, investment options, surrender schedules, pros and cons, and more. A task that might take 30-45 minutes manually now takes under a minute with surprising accuracy and completeness.
We are extremely careful about what we feed into AI tools. We’re hyper-aware of the privacy implications of AI, and we don’t cut corners. Our general rule of thumb is this: If you wouldn’t feel comfortable sending information via unsecured email, don’t input it into ChatGPT or similar models. We avoid entering any personally identifiable information — no names, no Social Security numbers, no birthdates. We use placeholders whenever possible and treat AI like a helpful assistant who doesn’t need full access to the client file to be effective.
Tips for Non-Tech-Savvy Advisors
You don’t have to be a coder or techie to use AI meaningfully. One of the easiest ways to get started is to treat AI like a smarter Google. Want to explore a financial planning concept? Type your question into ChatGPT or Claude. Curious about how to explain an investment product to a client? Ask the AI tool to break it down in plain language.
Even more simply, use AI to rephrase your thoughts. If you’ve ever struggled to write a birthday card or a client email that feels warm and professional, AI can help you polish your message. Start with your rough draft and ask the AI tool to rewrite it in your voice, in a specific tone, and to a certain length.
The key is just to get started. Try planning a meal with the ingredients in your fridge. The more you experiment, the more confident you’ll become. And soon, you’ll start seeing opportunities to bring AI into your workflow in helpful ways.
AI Won’t Replace You — But it Will Reward You
In our firm, we view AI as a new team member. It’s one who’s fast, eager, and getting smarter by the day. But just like a new hire, it still needs guidance, training, and a bit of patience. The payoff? Huge.
AI is here. It’s evolving fast. And while it won’t replace the human side of financial advising, it will absolutely reward those who learn how to work with it. But advisors who choose to learn how to use it will absolutely create an advantage — for themselves, and for the clients they serve.
Terry Parham Jr., CFP®, ChFC®, CLU®, RICP®, WMCP®, is co-founder and chief operating officer of Innovative Wealth Building. With over a decade of experience as a financial planner, he writes frequently on retirement planning, wealth strategies, and the modern tools and practices transforming how advisors serve their clients.
