May 19, 2026
by Sander Ressler, Managing Partner, Essential Edge & VP, Vidiance LLC
Personalized service remains at the heart of the financial advisor/client relationship and will remain so: It is what clients consistently demand and what advisors consistently want to provide. Intent is not the issue. Scalability is.
The Great Wealth Transfer is creating a new breed of client – heirs and beneficiaries who are more tech savvy than earlier generations, are not just digital natives but digitally fluent across myriad platforms and who expect financial advisors to anticipate (and address) their needs across all aspects of their lives. That is a tall order in and of itself, but the demographic trends that are thinning the financial advisor herd transform it into a herculean one: the industry is beginning to feel the impact of an advisor shortfall that is expected to reach 100,000 in less than a decade.
There are fewer advisors serving the needs of more clients who possess unprecedented levels of wealth. This is a challenge, but also an opportunity for firms with the strategies and solutions that drive compelling client engagement and deliver maximum impact. To achieve these goals, advisors and firms increasingly are turning to AI. There are plenty of unknowns around AI’s long-term impact on the business of advice. A more immediate concern is whether the AI juggernaut will prove to be a “one step forward, two steps back” scenario when it comes to engaging clients and prospects in a way that is both personalized and authentic. Helping advisors connect with clients at scale is AI’s forte. But can it be done without compromising an advisor’s voice?
Industry experts offer a resounding “yes” to this question, viewing AI as a means to reinforce authenticity, not diminish it, when advisors use it correctly.
“I think automation and authenticity must work in tandem. Advisors can’t abdicate their responsibility to get their message out. Automation should make it easier and more efficient to do so, but it’s not meant to replace your voice,” says Paul Karlitz, CEO at Sagient. “If an advisor crafts their message in a thoughtful manner that represents their values, then automation can help get that message out and amplify it. It’s automation and authenticity, not or.”
Erin Taylor, SVP of Marketing at Sowell Management,agrees, saying, “The opportunity isn’t choosing between automation and authenticity, it’s aligning them. When advisors have clarity around their voice, audience and message, automation can scale that across emails, social and client touchpoints with consistency and intention. AI becomes an extension of the advisor, helping them show up more often and more meaningfully. The firms getting it right aren’t replacing the human element; they’re reinforcing it at every touchpoint.”
Outreach, Authenticity and Engagement
When it comes to “getting the message out,” research validates the role AI can play in elevating a firm’s marketing efforts.
According to McKinsey:
- Organizations deploying agentic workflows in marketing can expect to see 10 to 30 percent revenue growth from hyper-personalized marketing
- It’s estimated that agentic systems will accelerate the creation and execution of marketing campaigns by 10 to 15 times
- Agentic AI will come to power as much as two-thirds of current marketing activities
There’s still work to be done, however. Despite AI being increasingly at the center of the engagement process, most advisors are not optimizing the Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) process. Though GEO – aka making your business findable by AI-driven search engines – can put a business right in front of thousands of prospective clients looking for guidance, many advisors are not positioning themselves to take advantage of it.
Samantha Russell, Chief Evangelist at FMG notes, “AI is increasingly the first stop for prospects looking for an advisor, and most advisors aren’t showing up. Visibility in those results depends on reviews, reputation and consistently fresh content, and that requires a level of marketing consistency most haven’t established yet. Advisors who have built that consistency are showing up in clients’ inboxes, social feeds and phones regularly, not just when the market moves. Firms that treat marketing as an organic growth driver don’t just retain clients. They become the advisor everyone in their network is hearing about.”
There’s No Single Approach to Maximizing AI
Each wealth management firm goes into its strategic planning process with an eye toward its resources, advisor needs (and expectations) and its individual business framework and ecosystem. With the rapid expansion of vendors in the third-party wealthtech provider sector, as well as deep-pocketed PE backers, there’s no shortage of AI solutions or ways to pay for them.
What tools are resonating right now? According to Ms. Russell, “Tools gaining the most traction are tied directly to growth outcomes, not just content output. FMG’s AI tool Muse has seen strong adoption because it removes the biggest bottleneck: getting from idea to published content quickly, in the advisor’s own voice, and in front of the right clients. Advisors don’t want more tools. They want fewer steps between the idea and something worth sending to a client. Advisors using Muse are publishing more consistently than they have in the past, without adding time to their week.”
Mr. Karlitz sees value in partnering with experts who deliver specialized solutions and platforms to his firm and its advisors. “We’ve partnered with firms like Carefull, Brevity, RUBY (powered by FUEL training consultants) and we use Advisor360 for our CRM. These AI-empowered tools complement our client deliverables, training and practice management efforts. We use these from an efficiency standpoint as we can receive information faster than ever before, and slice, dice and analyze data to help us learn where to focus our time and resources.”
Ms. Taylor says, “At Sowell, we align AI with each advisor’s brand and philosophy through structured inputs, such as client segmentation, communication preferences and clear messaging pillars.” She continues, “Agentic AI systems can play a powerful role in client engagement by identifying who needs outreach, drafting personalized messages and prompting timely follow-up. But to ensure engagement remains true to the advisor’s value proposition, it must operate within a ‘human-in-the-loop’ model. The goal isn’t to sound smarter or faster, it’s to stay consistent, relevant and aligned with what the advisor stands for.”
What an AI-Driven Future Looks Like
There’s no question AI can personalize both outreach and ongoing engagement at scale. The industry is aware of the potential data integrity issues and governance shortfalls that come with the use of AI. Is it too soon to gauge what price our industry will ultimately pay for efficiency gains created by AI? And is that too high a price to pay?
Ms. Taylor believes, “AI will help advisors anticipate needs and stay consistently engaged without added burden. But the future isn’t about more communication, it’s about more meaningful communication. Firms that win will use technology to create space for more intentional, human moments — shifting from reactive service to thoughtful, ongoing engagement that evolves with the client.”
Envisioning how AI can elevate customized interactions on a day-to-day basis really knows no bounds and is limited only by an advisor’s imagination. Mr. Karlitz believes that AI should allow for more and better client engagement, using this example to demonstrate his point: “Imagine getting an alert that one of your client’s children goes to the University of Indiana and that Fernando Mendoza led the Hoosiers to an undefeated season, a national championship, won the Heisman and was just picked Number 1 in the NFL draft. The advisor can use that info, derived from AI or their CRM, to reach out to the client, or their child (think intergenerational planning) for a relationship-building, ‘non-business touch.’ This is what AI can and should be doing to support marketing and engagement.”
Firms that are seeing the best success leveraging AI understand that efficiencies are not enough. These organizations are using the ever-evolving technology to systematically amplify an advisor’s voice in real time. Ms. Russell says, “Every advisor has a point of view, a niche, a way of talking to clients. The firms getting this right are capturing that systematically: documenting preferred phrasing, audience-specific messaging, and tone before they ever touch an AI tool. That becomes the foundation the technology builds on. Without it, agentic AI defaults to generic, and generic doesn’t grow a practice. Firms building that foundation now will have a significant head start as agentic AI becomes standard across the industry.”
Professionals operating in the wealth management space are used to operating within a dynamic ecosystem. AI will only accelerate industry change. There’s anticipation and there’s concern. The jury is out on whether AI’s role in our industry will prove to be a cautionary tale or a shining testament to human ingenuity. One thing is for sure: we’ll all be watching.
