Excel spreadsheets and multiple logins are becoming a thing of the past as financial technology continues to make advisors’ lives easier, though perhaps not as fast or efficiently as some advisors would like. And now, the possibilities created by advancing artificial intelligence programs are poised to change the game even further.
“There's some really interesting stuff that's being done specifically on the technology side, which is one of the things we were most excited about when launching our business,” said ShoreHaven Wealth Partners CEO Mike Durso.
“We operate like a 50 to 75 person firm which is incredibly scalable and efficient in the way we can operate for our clients,” he said of his five-person team. “I think the other thing that's really interesting is the integration between all of these platforms. The ability to pull in from eMoney or Riskalyze directly into Black Diamond so that when a client sees something they don't see it as five different pieces of technology.”
“Today the technology is starting to come online,” said Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor. “I think tax personalization, as well as risk and personal preferences, will start playing to that in a very meaningful way—and you can start to do that at scale.”
“With something like direct indexing, that change is very, very meaningful,” he said.
Kapoor expects artificial intelligence to have a positive impact on the industry at large.
“The use cases are manyfold,” he said, noting that Morningstar has developed a chatbot able to return data points on the company’s entire catalog of research in a matter of seconds.
“I think it will allow all of you to focus on things that matter,” Kapoor said. “It'll continue to make it easier for you to build to the portfolios that you want. It probably will help you with your clients as well. I'm very bullish on the technology, precisely because it takes away friction and allows you to go through so much so quickly.
“There's going to be a lot of evolution of the technology in the next month, two months, three months,” he said. “And so, we're going to see where it goes. But I'm incredibly optimistic.”