Executive Summary
The artificial-intelligence race in wealth management is entering a much more consequential phase.
Until recently, most advisor AI applications performed relatively narrow tasks: taking meeting notes, drafting emails, summarizing documents or helping create marketing content.
That model is beginning to change.
One of September’s most significant developments was the launch of Claude for Financial Advisors, an advisor-specific AI offering with connections to many of the systems wealth managers already use—including Charles Schwab, BlackRock, Addepar, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, SS&C Black Diamond, Vanguard, Wealthbox, Wealth.com and Zocks, alongside integrations with platforms such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, DocuSign, FactSet, S&P Global and Morningstar.
Meanwhile, new industry research is providing early evidence that AI adoption may be associated with greater advisor productivity and growth rather than simply headcount reduction. And firms planning their 2027 technology budgets are increasingly looking beyond flashy AI features toward systems that can automate the operational work surrounding the advisor-client relationship.
The industry’s AI conversation is shifting from “What can this tool do?” to a much more important question: “What happens when AI can work across the entire advisory firm?”
Technology & AI Scoreboard
| Trend | Direction | BKLM View |
|---|---|---|
| Advisor-Specific AI | ▲ Accelerating | General AI is becoming industry-specific |
| Tech-Stack Integration | ▲ Major Shift | AI increasingly connects multiple advisor systems |
| Agentic Workflows | ▲ Expanding | Focus shifting from answers to completed work |
| Advisor Productivity | ▲ Encouraging | Early research points toward capacity gains |
| Human Advice | ► Essential | AI increases the leverage of advisor judgment |
| Cybersecurity & Identity | ▲ Critical | More capable AI creates more sophisticated risks |
1. AI Is Being Built Specifically for Financial Advisors
One of September’s most important developments was Anthropic’s launch of Claude for Financial Advisors.
The significance is not simply that another technology company has entered wealth management.
It is how the technology is being connected.
According to WealthManagement.com, the offering includes connectors to a broad range of custodians, asset managers and AdvisorTech providers, including Charles Schwab, BlackRock, Addepar, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, SS&C Black Diamond, Wealthbox, Wealth.com, Vanguard and Zocks.
The system is intended to assist with workflows such as research, client-meeting preparation and documentation by bringing information from connected systems into the AI environment.
Kitces highlighted the potentially larger implication: advisors have struggled for years with integration across their technology stacks. An AI layer capable of aggregating information from multiple systems could offer a different approach to that longstanding problem.
BKLM View
This could prove much more important than another AI application.
For years, advisory firms have attempted to make dozens of independent technology platforms communicate with each other.
AI may eventually become the intelligence layer sitting above those platforms.
Instead of logging into the CRM, then the custodian, then financial-planning software, then portfolio reporting and finally the document system, an advisor could increasingly interact with one intelligent interface capable of understanding information across all of them.
That is a fundamentally different technology model.
2. The AdvisorTech Stack May Be Entering a New Era
Consider how a typical advisory firm operates today.
A single client relationship may involve:
CRM + Custodian + Financial Planning + Portfolio Management + Document Management + Email + Compliance + Marketing
The advisor is often the person—or employs the people—responsible for connecting those systems.
That creates enormous administrative friction.
The emergence of AI connected across multiple AdvisorTech platforms potentially changes the equation.
Imagine asking:
“Prepare me for my 2:00 meeting with the Smith family.”
Instead of simply searching one database, an integrated AI environment could eventually assemble:
- Recent client communications
- Portfolio changes
- Planning recommendations
- Outstanding service requests
- Previous meeting notes
- Upcoming financial events
- Required documents
- Follow-up opportunities
Then, after the meeting, the same environment could potentially help create the meeting summary, update records and organize follow-up work.
Industry analysts remain appropriately cautious about whether general AI platforms will understand the highly specific workflows of different advisory businesses. Reaction to the new advisor-specific technology has therefore included both enthusiasm about integration and questions about workflow depth, implementation and economics.
BKLM View
The eventual winner may not be the technology platform containing the most features.
It may be the platform that best understands the advisor’s business.
That includes the firm’s clients, workflows, policies, data, technology and priorities.
3. Early Data Challenges the “AI Will Eliminate Jobs” Narrative
Another important September development involves actual RIA data rather than technology demonstrations.
The inaugural 2026 RIA Market Monitor from Astraeus and Pirker Partners analyzed more than 6,000 independent RIA Form ADV filings.
According to WealthManagement.com, only about 6% of independent RIAs disclosed AI use in the filings analyzed, suggesting formal adoption remains relatively early.
But those AI-adopting firms represented approximately 11% of industry assets, and the research found higher hiring and advisor-productivity metrics among the firms identified as AI adopters.
Kitces’ review of the research similarly noted the finding that AI-adopting RIAs experienced headcount and AUM growth, while also cautioning that AI tools bring costs, compliance considerations and unanswered questions about how firms develop future talent.
This does not prove that AI caused the stronger results. More sophisticated, faster-growing firms may simply be more likely to adopt new technology in the first place.
But it does provide an important early data point.
BKLM View
The most interesting AI question for advisory firms may not be:
“How many employees can we eliminate?”
A better question could be:
“How much more can our existing team accomplish?”
A productive advisory firm could use AI-created capacity to serve additional clients, prospect more consistently, provide deeper planning, communicate more frequently and grow without increasing overhead at the same historical rate.
That is a much more compelling business case than simple cost cutting.
4. Advisors Still Want More Time With Clients
Technology was supposed to save advisors time.
Apparently, advisors still want more of it.
A survey of 549 financial advisors cited by Kitces found that 72% wanted more time for prospecting and deepening existing client relationships.
The survey also provides an interesting picture of current AI usage. Common applications included drafting emails, meeting notes and research—useful activities, but still largely individual productivity tasks.
That helps explain why the next phase of AI matters.
Saving ten minutes writing an email is helpful.
Redesigning the entire pre-meeting and post-meeting workflow could be considerably more valuable.
BKLM View
This should become one of the primary measurements firms use when evaluating AI:
Did it create more high-value advisor time?
Not number of prompts.
Not number of AI tools purchased.
Not number of meeting transcripts generated.
Actual hours returned to advisors for:
- Prospecting
- Client conversations
- Planning
- Centers of influence
- Business development
- Succession conversations
- Relationship management
Technology that fails to create meaningful advisor capacity may simply be adding another layer to an already complicated technology stack.
5. Agentic AI Is Moving Into the 2027 Technology Budget
As advisory firms begin planning technology spending for 2027, the conversation around agentic AI is becoming more practical.
InvestmentNews recently reported that wealth-management technology leaders see some of the clearest near-term returns in the operational work surrounding advice—particularly meeting preparation, client follow-up and connecting information from CRM, custodial and planning systems.
That distinction is important.
The near-term opportunity may not be having AI determine what advice a client should receive.
It may be allowing AI to perform much of the administrative work necessary before and after the advisor delivers that advice.
A future review meeting could increasingly involve a workflow like:
Gather Data → Identify Changes → Prepare Review → Advisor Meeting → Document Discussion → Update CRM → Generate Tasks → Draft Follow-Up
AI could assist at nearly every point while the advisor remains responsible for the relationship, judgment and recommendations.
BKLM View
This is where agentic AI begins to become economically meaningful.
The goal isn’t automation for automation’s sake.
The goal is compressing hours of low-value administrative work into minutes while protecting the high-value human interaction in the middle.
6. AI Could Actually Make Human Advice More Valuable
There is an interesting paradox emerging.
As consumers gain access to increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence, information itself becomes less scarce.
Anyone can ask AI about:
- Roth conversions
- Social Security
- Portfolio construction
- Estate-planning concepts
- Tax strategies
- Retirement projections
That does not necessarily make financial advisors less valuable.
It may change where their value resides.
A September WealthManagement.com discussion on AI and advice argues that advisors are still only beginning to exploit AI beyond basic note-taking and content creation, while integrated structured data could help identify client opportunities, accelerate service and support organic growth.
The advisor’s value increasingly shifts toward:
Judgment.
Context.
Accountability.
Behavioral coaching.
Communication.
Trust.
Understanding the family.
BKLM View
AI can produce information almost instantly.
It cannot automatically create a trusted relationship.
The best advisors may therefore become more human, not less, as technology handles an increasing share of the administrative and information-processing work surrounding them.
7. AI Also Creates a New Security Problem: Is the Client Real?
There is another side to increasingly capable artificial intelligence.
Fraud is becoming more sophisticated.
Barron’s recently reported on the growing challenge advisors face verifying prospective clients as synthetic identities, stolen personal information and increasingly convincing AI-generated voice and video make traditional identity checks more vulnerable.
Advisors and security experts interviewed by the publication emphasized independent verification and greater caution during onboarding, particularly when something about a prospective client’s behavior or communication appears unusual.
BKLM View
AI security isn’t only about protecting the firm’s data from hackers.
Increasingly, firms must also verify that the person on the other side of a digital interaction is actually who they claim to be.
That makes identity verification, cybersecurity procedures and human judgment increasingly important—especially when opening accounts or processing unusual financial requests.
The more sophisticated AI becomes, the more valuable trust but verify becomes.
What Advisory Firms Should Be Doing Now
The pace of change does not mean every firm needs every new AI application.
It does mean firms should be developing a deliberate strategy.
1. Stop Evaluating AI Tools in Isolation
Ask how each technology connects to the rest of the firm’s operating environment.
2. Measure Advisor Capacity
Track whether technology actually returns meaningful hours to advisors and staff.
3. Prioritize Data Quality
AI becomes dramatically more useful when CRM, client and operational data are accurate and structured.
4. Identify Complete Workflows
Instead of automating individual tasks, examine the entire process surrounding client meetings, onboarding, service and prospecting.
5. Strengthen Identity Verification
Deepfakes and synthetic identities make independent client verification increasingly important.
6. Maintain Human Oversight
AI should accelerate the advisor’s judgment—not quietly replace it.
BKLM Perspective
September’s developments point toward a much larger transformation than simply adding AI to the advisor technology stack.
AI may become the layer that connects the stack itself.
That distinction matters.
The first generation of AdvisorTech digitized individual functions.
CRM digitized relationship management.
Financial-planning software digitized planning.
Portfolio platforms digitized investment management.
Marketing platforms digitized communication.
The next generation could increasingly connect those individual systems through intelligence capable of understanding the client and coordinating work across the firm.
If that happens, the competitive advantage won’t come from simply “having AI.”
Almost everyone will eventually have access to similar underlying technology.
The advantage will come from what surrounds it:
Better data.
Better processes.
Better integration.
Better security.
Better people.
And ultimately, a better client experience.
For advisory firms, that may be the most important lesson from this month’s technology developments.
The AI race isn’t about replacing the advisor.
It’s about building a better advisory firm around the advisor.
Sources & Further Reading
WealthManagement.com — Claude for Financial Advisors
Coverage of Anthropic’s advisor-specific AI offering and its integrations across custodians, asset managers and AdvisorTech platforms.
Kitces — September AdvisorTech & Weekend Reading
Analysis of the changing AdvisorTech landscape, AI integration and the implications of advisor-specific AI connecting multiple technology systems.
WealthManagement.com — RIA AI Adoption Research
Reporting on the 2026 RIA Market Monitor and the relationship observed between disclosed AI adoption, hiring and advisor productivity.
InvestmentNews — Agentic AI and 2027 Technology Budgets
Reporting on where wealth-management technology leaders are seeing practical returns from agentic workflows.
WealthManagement.com — AI and the Human Advisor
Discussion of AI integration, structured data, client service and organic growth.
Barron’s Advisor — AI, Deepfakes and Client Verification
Reporting on emerging identity-verification risks facing financial advisors as generative AI capabilities improve.