Revolutionizing Wealth Management: The Rise of Agentic AI
The wealth management industry is on the cusp of a revolution, driven by the emergence of agentic AI. This transformative technology promises to redefine how financial advisors work, interact with clients and manage wealth. In my previous post, The Future of Wealth Management: Practifi’s Vision for an AI-Powered CRM, I outlined Practifi’s vision to deliver the most AI-enabled and AI-integrated vertical CRM for RIAs, covering the short-term and long-term plans. But what about the mid-term?
That’s where we see agentic AI coming in, so let’s dive deeper into how agentic AI is poised to revolutionize your business.
The Evolution of AI in Wealth Management
But first, a short history lesson. AI entered the mainstream back in late 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT, which was really the first opportunity most of us had had to engage with AI in any meaningful way. This was an example of conversational AI; it could hold a conversation well and knew a little about a broad range of topics, but it didn’t know anything about your business, so it couldn’t do much meaningful work for you.
It wasn’t long before we started to see integrated AI and assistive AI enter the mix, and these made many more things possible. An integrated AI is connected to other systems, which allows it to do things like tell you the weather in Sarajevo or send Jennifer an email to see if she wants to get coffee next week.
Assistive AI takes this one step further and incorporates an AI “copilot” into another piece of software, allowing for a more effective back and forth between itself and the user as they work together on larger, more complex tasks. We’ve seen plenty of these in the last couple of years, most notably Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot.
These are valuable, sure, but they’re also limited in some important ways:
- They need significant guidance and a lot of handholding. They’re unable to work out the right way to action a task, or how best to achieve a specific goal.
- They have short memories. Once a conversation gets to a certain length, they forget what was said at the beginning.
- They’re confined within certain environments and can only use the tools they’ve been given access to (or that they reside within).
Introducing Agentic AI: The Game-Changer
Enter agentic AI, which introduces reasoning, memory and the ability to use a computer just like you and I do. Suddenly AI isn’t just a way to augment the productivity of your existing employees, it’s a fully autonomous labor force in its own right. It can learn, adapt and operate independently within defined parameters, making it ideal for wealth management tasks such as:
- Client Profiling: Agentic AI can analyze vast pools of data to create finely tuned client profiles, offering a 360-degree view of each client. This enables advisors to deliver personalized advice and real-time adaptive solutions tailored to each client’s evolving needs.
- Streamlining Operations: By automating routine tasks like compliance monitoring and data entry, agentic AI frees advisors to focus on strategic client engagements, driving growth and enhancing client satisfaction.
- Portfolio Management: Agentic AI can continuously monitor and adjust portfolios to maximize returns, ensuring investment strategies remain aligned with market conditions and client preferences.
A Real-World Application of Agentic AI
Imagine having a digital assistant that can handle complex client requests autonomously:
Your AI agent receives a request to open a joint investment account for clients John and Jane Doe. It will autonomously:
- Generate and fill out necessary paperwork
- Contact you for any missing information
- Send forms to John and Jane via DocuSign
- Submit the completed request through the custodian’s portal
- Monitor the portal for alerts and notifies you of any updates
All the while, it logs its progress and actions in Practifi as a collection of processes and tasks to ensure there’s a solid paper trail.
This scenario isn’t science fiction; it’s the near future. (Much nearer than you think, because we can already do each of these individual parts today!)
Salesforce’s Agentforce: A Step Toward Agentic AI
As Practifi is built on Salesforce, no discussion would be complete without talking about Agentforce, Salesforce’s own agentic AI offering. We’re keeping a close eye on its development, and although it’s still evolving, Agentforce shows great promise:
- Agent Studio puts agent-building capabilities within reach of most business users, allowing you to define the goals they work towards and teach them about the unique aspects of your Practifi instance
- Clients can engage directly with agents, allowing them to self-serve requests like appointment scheduling and transacting on their accounts
- Advanced reasoning capabilities mean it can assist advisors when crafting investment strategies (here’s a great example of this in practice)
It’s worth noting that under the hood, Agentforce is itself an augmented Einstein Copilot. This means it’s still limited to the Salesforce ecosystem and unable to leverage other software in your tech stack like the example I gave above. It’s still going to be a very valuable tool in your firm’s arsenal, but for now at least, agentic nirvana is just out of its reach.
Preparing for an AI-Powered Future
Although the agentic AI landscape is still very much in its infancy, we believe there’s a lot of potential — enough to warrant a spot in between our short- and long-term plans:
- Short-term focus: Implementing integrated AI features to enhance day-to-day operations and give you back more time in your day. We expect to roll out the first batch of these features in July!
- Mid-term planning: Evaluating the most promising agentic AI technologies that will bring the most value to our clients.
- Long-term vision: Closing in on 2026, expect us to start talking in more detail about agentic roadmap. It’ll be a real game-changer!
As agentic AI continues to evolve, it will fundamentally change how financial advisors work. At Practifi, we’re dedicated to ensuring that this technology enhances your ability to build meaningful relationships with clients and drive business growth. So, stay tuned for more updates as we continue to innovate and integrate AI capabilities into our product!
