Like the wealth management industry continues to embrace AI solutions with open armsa woman-founded AI fintech and one of the biggest names in the business join forces.
CogniCorCalifornia-based provider of an AI-powered business automation and learning platform, has formally partnered with Charles Schwab to implement its suite of solutions for Schwab-affiliated RIAs through the Managed account marketplace.
The first client of the new collaboration is sequoia financial group, an RIA in Akron, Ohio, with more than $10 billion in assets. It is one of Schwab’s largest affiliates.
co-founder of CogniCor and CEO Sindhu Joseph believes that AI-enabled digital assistants can be leveraged to alleviate many of the issues associated with the significant growth of mergers and acquisitions within the industry.
Given that the growth of mergers and acquisitions remains highThere is an increased need for scalable solutions that facilitate the efficient onboarding and education of new advisors, the opening of new accounts, and help clients transition from existing accounts to an advisor’s new firm.
Joseph said his company’s new relationship with Schwab is aimed at responding to requests for these solutions from the nation’s top RIAs.
“Currently, consultants and employees are forced to spend about 40% of their time performing routine, manual tasks,” said Joseph. “This time should be spent serving customers and doing other value-creating activities. With our business automation and learning platforms, Schwab can create more growth opportunities for its customers.”
Sequoia is also helping CogniCor test “Meeting Assistant,” the company’s latest AI-enabled solution, on a large scale. The system works with advisors and the company’s existing Salesforce-based CRM to automate pre- and post-meeting paperwork, create dynamic agendas, and help track events and milestones in clients’ lives in real time.
“As we sought to improve the efficiency of our advisors without any impact on the customer experience, we identified the back-office processes around the customer-advisor meeting as a ripe area for improvement,” said Trevor Chuna, Sequoia’s chief technology officer. . “Working closely with CogniCor, we selected several areas where we believe this technology can reduce time spent on repetitive administrative activities. We are very pleased to offer these seamlessly integrated tools to our consultants in the coming months.”
Joseph added that she is excited about the opportunity to provide Sequoia advisors with AI-powered tools to help them “focus on what matters most: customer relationships.”
The announcement comes as more support for AI pours in from across the industry. A survey of 200 financial services professionals conducted in May and shared this week by Broadridge Financial Solutions found that artificial intelligence is among the top investment priorities for financial services companies.
Nearly a quarter (23%) of respondents to the Broadridge survey identified AI and automation as their company’s top investment. Only data management tools scored higher with 27% of respondents ranking it the highest.
“In today’s fast-moving world, a streamlined workflow is crucial and good, clean data is key,” Vijay Mayadas, president of capital markets at Broadridge, said in a statement. “And yet companies are drowning in the complexity of managing and simplifying data without the technology and digital infrastructures to support its management, stifling transparency, agility and growth.”
The research also found that finance professionals are eager to get started. More than half of those surveyed said their companies still have some progress to make before they reach the advanced stages of their innovation and technology efforts.
Partnerships like the one between CogniCor and Schwab can help.
“We listened to customers and the survey results highlight how companies are overwhelmed with the amount of data and limited in how to use it,” said Mayadas. “By evaluating one’s technology stack and partnering with trusted vendors, companies have the opportunity to maximize the capacity of their data and improve their workflow management.”
The consulting firm Accenture also recently offered an investigation that bodes well for the future of AI in wealth management. Its “AI in Wealth Management” survey polled 500 financial advisors in the United States and Canada earlier this year to “fairly assess their familiarity with AI and what, if any, disconnects exist when it comes to using AI.” technology”.
The response was enthusiastic as almost all surveyed advisors want AI solutions and are already using AI to some extent.
About 83% of the advisors interviewed said they believe that AI will have a direct, measurable and ongoing impact on the client-advisor relationship in the next 18 months. That same percentage of advisers also said they believe AI can achieve a level of sophisticated advice and planning that will ultimately leave them competing with an algorithm for clients in the next 18 months.
But there are obstacles. Five out of 10 advisors in the Accenture survey feel their companies are unable to act on their AI vision due to an outdated company culture.