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[Where the rubber meets the road, where true innovation happens, is not in the introduction of a new technology, but in its strategic application in solving specific problems and enhancing the operating dynamic and capabilities of a business. That is also where the hesitancy and fear of implementing new technology can also be practically addressed by demonstrating and actualizing a quantum leap in saving time, money, effort, and positioning advisors as modern, hypercompetitive financial professionals structured for customer experience, engagement, and trust.
As an excellent case study on strategically applying AI for financial advisors, we reached out to new Institute members Era Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, and Divam Jain, Co-Founder & CTO of Zeplyn – a purpose-built AI assistant that streamlines nuanced wealth management workflows and improves client experience for advisory firms, including RIAs, Broker Dealers, and family offices.
Their flagship product, Zeplyn Meeting Assistant, automates the time-consuming administrative tasks of meeting prep, note-taking, drafting follow-up emails, creating and assigning tasks, and updating your CRM. As former Google engineers with decades of experience in software development and expertise in building AI products for Google Search, Google Assistant, and Google Speech-to-text applications, they understand what it takes to build enterprise-grade AI serving billions of users. We asked them questions to better understand how they are now bringing that expertise to revolutionize relationship-driven financial services.]
Hortz: Can you tell us about your background as technologists and what brought you to the financial services industry?
Era: My co-founder Divam and I spent years building AI at Google. We are both AI enthusiasts and have a deep understanding of how AI can be used to extract, aggregate, and synthesize valuable information from unstructured data, like web, emails, audio, etc. Wanting to use this knowledge to reimagine how financial advisors work, we started Zeplyn.
We were drawn to the relationship-driven wealth management industry because of its heavy reliance on manual processes. During my MBA at Harvard Business School (HBS), I had the opportunity to network with RIAs run by HBS alums. It was immediately clear to me that we could automate away the mundane, error-prone, have-to-be-done admin tasks that have traditionally been done by hand, creating mind space for work that financial advisors truly enjoy doing – building relationships. So, that is what we did.
Hortz: What specific advisor challenges are you addressing with your suite of AI-powered product solutions?
Era: We can all relate to that feeling of not having enough hours in a day. Advisors feel this all the time. They spend countless hours documenting client meetings and following-up on post-meeting tasks. Yet, with the antiquated, manual nature of this process, less than 25% of client meetings are properly documented. That is a big problem, especially because 60% of client data gathering happens during meetings.
With Zeplyn, financial advisors are spending less time on client meeting prep, note-taking, and follow-up tasks, and are fulfilling regulatory obligations of keeping client records up-to-date. We automate all of that, quickly, securely, and accurately. And because of the way we do it, advisors gain a variety of operational efficiencies, ensure compliance, and can strengthen relationships with their clients.
Hortz: How did you apply and design your technology to address these advisor meeting workflow issues?
Divam: In the early months of Zeplyn, we invested our time observing and learning from the day-to-day of our design partner RIA firms. This helped us uncover the complexity of their workflows and the inadequacy of their manual processes. We identified the ever-increasing meeting admin overload as a major bottleneck to scaling their book of business. Zeplyn now streamlines all of that, saving advisors 12+ hours a week.
We have built the most accurate and secure technology based on proprietary AI agents trained to specifically understand the wealth management context. Zeplyn Meeting Assistant takes any client conversation and turns it into coherent and structured summaries that include client financial details, goals and objectives, key discussion points, and action items, streamlining meeting prep, note-taking, and post-meeting workflows for advisors. Zeplyn also automatically updates the advisor’s CRM, ensuring they consistently fulfill their compliance obligations.
As part of our commitment to deliver highly-accurate and contextually aware AI technology, we will continue to partner with our customers and listen to the rising needs of wealth managers. As market dynamics, regulations, and client preferences change, among other things, so will our platform.
Hortz: What are your key differentiators from other similar products?
Divam: Zeplyn is an end-to-end client intelligence platform purpose-built for financial advisors. Since day 1, our focus has been on security and accuracy. We have fine-turned our AI to understand the complexities of the wealth management context. Our flagship product, Zeplyn Meeting Assistant, captures financial details, important discussion points, and other client insights. It then generates coherent, complete, organized notes—with high accuracy—that not only benefit the advisor but also their clients. This makes Zeplyn a highly reliable solution for documenting client interactions, fulfilling compliance requirements, and integrating data into an advisor’s tech stack.
We were recently approached by an RIA that had already tried two well-known, built-for-financial-advisors, AI-powered note-takers. Their advisors were still spending a significant amount of time after each client meeting cleaning up their notes. We set them up with a free trial of Zeplyn, and now they are customers. The lead advisor told us that “Zeplyn is not just a little better, it’s materially better.”
Another advisor said, “The first time I used Zeplyn, it hit it out of the park. Not just accurate notes (which cut about an hour off my follow-up review), but its ability to capture nuance and ‘hear’ not just what my clients were saying but also to capture the feelings that their words communicated was incredibly impressive. It helps me be more present without worrying about missing something on my notes and saves me probably a solid hour on each meeting follow up.”
Hortz: What other benefits and capabilities can advisors expect from using your meeting tech platform?
Era: Trevor Chuna, CTO at Sequoia Financial Group, had this to say about their experience: “We selected Zeplyn not just for their omni-channel note-taking capabilities, but also for their long-term vision in supporting the over-all client meeting process—the most frequent and expensive activity of an RIA.”
Just recently, we announced our $3M seed funding, a major milestone on our journey to rebuild the wealth management experience from an AI-native perspective. This funding will fuel the work we have ahead of us in continuing to improve the advisor-client meeting experience and making client intelligence more accessible. The advisors teaming up with Zeplyn can expect to unlock even more efficiency and opportunity.
Hortz: From your experiences working at Google, what best advice or suggestions can you offer advisors on implementing and employing AI-powered tech solutions into their businesses?
Divam: From my experience working at Google and now in the wealth management industry, here is my advice:
One – Trust that AI is here to augment, not replace, your career. I know this is a real fear across a lot of professions that are seeing AI come into focus, including wealth management. However, in the fields that AI has been embraced, jobs have been elevated. Airline pilots, for example, were once responsible for manually operating a flight through routine tasks. Now, AI handles all of that, allowing the pilot to oversee the automated system and better respond to critical situations. We are already beginning to see that shift in financial services as wealth managers are freed from manual admin work to focus on critical situations for their clients and business.
Two – AI can do really cool things, but do not let it overshadow the importance of security and compliance. As you look for vendors to partner with, make sure you explicitly ask how they safeguard your (and your clients’) data:
- Are they SOC2 compliant?
- What customer data is retained?
- Where and how is customer personal data stored?
- What is their data retention policy?
- Who has access to this data?
- Is this data shared with third parties?
- If and how is your data used in training the AI?
Err on the side of asking too many questions.
Three – Get on the AI wave, and fast. In the next 5-10 years, AI will touch every wealth management process. It is inevitable. If you have not implemented it yet, look at your processes, identify the biggest pain points within them individually and collectively, and take steps toward implementing AI there. That is where you are going to see real and immediate ROI.
Era: AI has a lot of impressive use cases. Some may appear as a “nice to have” just like having an online presence was 20 years ago. Today, it is a non-negotiable. By investing in AI now, you can take advantage of the immediate benefits and reap the early adopter benefits in the years to come.
This article was originally published here and is republished on Wealthtender with permission.
About the Author
Bill Hortz
Founder Institute for Innovation Development
To make Wealthtender free for readers, we earn money from advertisers, including financial professionals and firms that pay to be featured. This creates a conflict of interest when we favor their promotion over others. Read our editorial policy and terms of service to learn more. Wealthtender is not a client of these financial services providers.
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