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[The rapidly accelerating rate of technological development has serious business consequences. The explosion of new tech options and applications are manifesting themselves as a dizzying array of complex decisions affecting firm strategy, client engagement, competitive positioning, and future growth. This speed of innovation is creating an atmosphere at many firms of confusion leading to inaction.
To put this into practical context, the issue of having access to and learning how to implement and apply AI to your business began on November 30, 2022, with the initial public release of GPT-3.5. Just two and a half years later, there are over 30 major frontier-scale models (e.g., Claude, Gemini, LLaMA, Grok) and well over 1,000 publicly known models now encompassing Large Language Models (LLMs), Multimodal Models (text + image + audio/video), Domain-Specific Models (legal, medical, financial), Open-Source Models on platforms, and Proprietary Internal Models used by enterprises and startups. The decision on how to employ AI to your business has become exceedingly more complex.
That is why our current business environment is a vastly different operating environment than we are used to. It is driven by a “compounding” rate of change as technology keeps feeding on itself and getting more powerful and versatile. To be able to compete and thrive in this new business dynamic, firms need to keep up with that rate of change. They have to be fully in it.
Business leaders cannot afford to sit this out and wait to see where it is going and plug in later. The gulf between where firms are deciding to wait and rely on tweaking traditional legacy systems/processes and where competitors are engaging clients and operating at scale with the latest applications of AI and other new technologies, can be insurmountable. The age of slow AI experimentation is over as these latter future-focused wealth management firms are demanding quick implementation and proof of outcomes.
To learn more about this need for speed in tech today, I was introduced to Sam Kaessner, VP of Engineering, at TIFIN AMP – an asset management AI platform which combines data science, engineering, AI, and visualization capabilities to drive more intelligent distribution. In our conversation we explore how TIFIN’s Data Science and Engineering teams have adopted an “innovation at speed” mindset that is geared to generate measurable commercial outcomes exponentially faster.
This interview delivers a strong message to financial firms that there is no longer enough time to just experiment – you need to start figuring out how to execute, evaluate, and evolve with velocity to compete in today’s hyper-competitive and ever-changing business environment.]
Hortz: What is an “Innovation at Speed” mindset?
Kaessner: An “Innovation at Speed” mindset for us is about having a collective mental attitude and operating approach that drives our whole team, our whole company, to do things in days and weeks, not months and years – to vigorously create and effectively deploy AI capabilities and new technology solutions on an accelerated timeline.
We further believe this mindset and approach is vital to staying effective in the rapidly changing AI landscape. This rapid pace of AI development creates a “forcing function” that requires companies to innovate quickly to stay competitive and leverage the latest technology and tools.
We no longer have the luxury of taking six months to validate an idea or “experiment” in the AI tech space. When you are working in this exponentially changing tech environment, you have to stay on top of that progress – making sure you are part of and plugging into that speed of innovation.
Hortz: How does this mindset drive different work behaviors and outcomes? How is the actual innovation development process altered?
Kaessner: We can just solve client problems directly, skip all the bureaucracy, and really focus on the pain points of our customers, like wholesalers and sales managers in our AMP business unit. Our business mantra and tech structure allow us to quickly deploy new features and solutions for clients based on direct feedback and dynamic collaboration. We are then able to go from identifying a client need to rapidly build, iterate, and deploy a solution in just a few weeks, skipping the traditional pilot/prototype phase.
TIFIN has built a flexible, scalable, distribution technology platform (AMP 3.0) that allows us to quickly deploy speed-to-value business solutions for clients, keep up with the pace of technology and technological change, knowing we have guardrails and systems in place.
Adopting our “innovation at speed” mantra, along with structurally maintaining separate innovation business units and operating structures in place, ensures that we can still move fast, but also still have the maturity of a trusted partner that financial firms can collaborate with to keep up with rapid technological changes.
Hortz: Can you walk us through an example of your “innovation at speed” process on a recent TIFIN product or enhancement?
Kaessner: Just last week, our customer asked us for some specific features and capabilities to be added on a Tuesday and we delivered them the following day. We are at this point where we can add new capabilities really quickly because our enhanced AMP 3.0 platform infrastructure and scalability, now in its current third iteration, allows us to maintain our pace of rapid deployment to deliver quickly on client needs.
We can also look across all of our asset management clients and have seen how their needs have played out before for guidance – we know what we need to do and how we need to deliver the needed change.
Another example is when we talk to wholesalers, we are able to get their direct feedback and solve their pain points directly. Because we are working with them in collaboration as a trusted partner, they are helping us shape our product offerings developing new features again in weeks to solve their needs. They recently asked us to deliver a number of ways for them to sell specific products more effectively – which we are actively working on right now.
Part of innovation is being really close to our customers and end users – the people that we solve problems for. That is what we are focused on doing.
Hortz: Where is this “innovation at speed” taking you and your team? What areas of AI development and applications for financial services are you exploring?
Kaessner: Our platform has provided a lot of value by having done all the hard work of being selective with what data is chosen and how it is organized to provide an experience that is highly tailored to the Asset Management industry.
One thing that we are looking at right now to add further value for distribution professionals is to enhance our AMP 3.0 platform by adding AI agents and Large Language Models(LLM) workflows. Having spent time getting the client’s data curated on the AMP platform, we want to create features that allow their data to be more integrated, easily accessible, and strategically used through added AI tech capabilities.
What the platform end user could do then is use an AI agent to say, Hey, I want to write a meeting agenda, so get me everything from AMP platform that we know about this potential advisor buyer – needs and interests – and write me a meeting agenda to maximize my time with them discussing the right opportunities and adding value to the advisor. And so, in a nutshell, it is really just providing a trusted way for AI to access data on the platform and build these workflows on top of the client’s curated dataset.
Hortz: What is your advice to financial firms on how to gear themselves up to fully implement and apply AI and other technologies at this juncture of the tech cycle in financial services?
Kaessner: You need a great deal of experience and expertise to develop AI and technical systems and even more to stay ahead as the pace of innovation accelerates. Keeping up requires more than just hiring smart people. It demands a deep technical culture and a mindset built around rapid iteration, constant learning, and execution at the edge of what is possible.
For most financial firms, that is incredibly hard to build and sustain internally. Internal teams often underestimate just how much effort, time, and specialization it takes. I say that not as a tech vendor pitching services, but as someone who has been on the other side and knows the nature of the beast.
I would highly suggest that this should not be conducted as a vendor/purchase decision. You are not purchasing a fixed product. That is not the way to look at it. What you are doing is determining a longstanding strategic tech partner. You want someone who is built for speed and adaptability as the technical landscape shifts. Not just addressing today’s tech needs for your firm but also addressing your ongoing future needs as they change and AI capabilities shift.
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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