Wealthtender is a trusted, independent financial directory and educational resource governed by our strict Editorial Policy, Integrity Standards, and Terms of Use. While we receive compensation from featured professionals (a natural conflict of interest), we always operate with integrity and transparency to earn your trust. Wealthtender is not a client of these providers.
[With 100,000 financial advisors retiring amidst the $84 trillion Great Wealth Transfer and rising personalized client services expectations, this guest article from Leslie Norman, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Dynasty Financial Partners, explores the evolving role of AI technology in wealth management firms that can bridge this advisor gap.
From her unique perspective as CTO of one of the nation’s largest independent WealthTech platforms for independent financial advisors, she outlines how the future of wealth management will be defined not by the number of advisors, but by how effectively they can leverage technology to deliver personalized, high-value service at scale. In this discussion, artificial intelligence emerges not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a powerful tool to multiply advisors’ capabilities.]
100,000 Advisors Are Retiring. Here’s How AI Fills the Gap
Wealth management is undergoing a structural shift. According to McKinsey, more than 100,000 financial advisors, accounting for about 42% of industry assets, will retire over the next decade. On the face of it, this points to a sharp reduction in advisor capacity.
At the same time, client expectations are on the rise. Investors expect fast responses, personalized planning, and ongoing communication beyond just quarterly updates. Advisors meanwhile are coming under pressure to manage more clients and do it more effectively with fewer experienced professionals on hand.
Traditional solutions — hiring junior staff, raising account minimums, or optimizing processes — only go so far to fill the gap. The more transformative path lies in how firms use artificial intelligence to strengthen human advisors contending with capacity issues, not replace them with insentient machines.
AI as Augmentation, Not Automation
Much of the early conversation around AI in finance focused on automation: robo-advisors, chatbots, and passive allocation tools. But these consumer-oriented uses downplay a more significant opportunity: AI’s potential to help advisors work more efficiently.
Today’s advisors spend a lot of time on tasks that do not add direct value for clients. Gathering data from multiple systems, preparing for meetings, generating reports, and drafting routine communications all take time away from strategic work.
AI can reduce that load significantly. Generative models, when applied responsibly, can assemble client briefings, summarize portfolio movements, and draft personalized messages. Intelligent assistants can surface timely planning opportunities or monitor client portfolios for actionable trends.
The result? Better-leveraged advisors. In this sense, AI does not replace human insight, it amplifies it.
The Real Barrier: Fragmented Infrastructure
The biggest limitation to effective AI in wealth management is not the quality of the models. It is the state of the data.
Many advisory firms, particularly in the independent space, work with fragmented technology stacks. Custodians, CRMs, planning software, performance systems, and document management tools often come from different vendors and do not share data easily.
This lack of integration makes it difficult to build reliable, AI-driven workflows. Even the most advanced tools cannot deliver intelligent results if the inputs are inconsistent, redundant, or outdated.
Firms need infrastructure that can unify data across platforms and make it accessible to intelligent systems in real time. This includes secure data “lakes,” API-based integrations, and internal standards for data quality and governance.
Without that foundation, AI will not work reliably or at scale.
Keeping the Advisor at the Helm
AI is excellent at pattern recognition, language generation, and speed. But it has no real understanding of client context, values, or emotion. In wealth management, this deficiency matters a lot.
Clients trust advisors whose judgment is sound. In contrast, an AI model can summarize tax-loss harvesting opportunities or flag an insurance gap, but only an advisor can interpret those options in light of a client’s evolving goals or emotional needs and make appropriate recommendations.
That is why a human-in-the-loop design is essential. In this model, AI is like a well-trained assistant: helpful, fast, and knowledgeable — but always under strict human supervision.
Risks Are Real and Often Underestimated
AI in wealth management presents meaningful risks if not handled carefully.
- Data quality: Poor or inconsistent data leads to bad — sometimes downright nonsensical — recommendations, which can erode client trust.
- Privacy: Many off-the-shelf AI tools come with opaque terms and broad data rights. Inputting client information into a public model can, however unintentionally, expose sensitive data to external systems.
- Overreliance: Even the best AI systems make mistakes. In regulated industries, errors in client communications or recommendations carry reputational and legal risk. Firms must set clear limits on where and how AI is used and always include a stringent layer of human review.
At Dynasty, we use a version of AI that operates only within our own secure environment. It ensures client data stays protected and compliant while still offering all the benefits of generative AI tools. Our approach — containment first, capability second — is one I believe the broader industry should adopt.
What the Advisor of the Future Looks Like
AI will not reduce the need for advisors. It will redefine what they spend their time doing.
Advisors will increasingly rely on digital assistants to handle routines such as:
- Meeting and briefing preparation
- Communications drafts
- Data retrieval
- Task management
Instead of spending hours pulling and collating reports, advisors will receive intelligent briefings with context and prompts. Even with time spent on the vital task of refining these outputs, this will give advisors more scope for planning, business development, and meaningful two-way client communication.
This shift will not reduce advisor headcount, but it will reshape jobs in wealth management. Administrative roles may shrink over time, but strategic, planning-focused roles will grow in importance. Advisors will be judged not just on what they know, but on how effectively they use technology to serve clients with more precision and greater personalization.
Seizing the AI Opportunity
With advisor headcount declining, firms have a critical window to deploy AI capabilities that can bridge the gap. The most successful advisors will be those with the clearest strategy for using them, not those with the most complex or far-reaching tools.
The best way forward involves starting with specific use cases that reduce friction: meeting prep, communication follow-up, task summarization, portfolio reviews.
In these areas, AI can deliver immediate time savings and better outcomes. As trust in the tools grows, firms can explore more advanced applications such as autonomous virtual assistants that coordinate multi-step client workflows. These tools prepare meeting briefs, schedule follow-ups, trigger next-best-action suggestions, and route tasks across platforms, all with minimal human input. Advisors stay in control, but the administrative lift is dramatically reduced.
One Final Consideration
AI will not replace financial advisors. It simply cannot. But it can and will function as a multiplier.
AI’s real value lies in freeing advisors from routine tasks to focus on thinking, planning, and building relationships.
Firms that invest thoughtfully in AI infrastructure while keeping advisors at the center will gain real competitive advantages — not just from automating tasks, but from amplifying human expertise.
This article was originally published here and is republished on Wealthtender with permission.
About the Author
Bill Hortz
Founder Institute for Innovation Development
Wealthtender is a trusted, independent financial directory and educational resource governed by our strict Editorial Policy, Integrity Standards, and Terms of Use. While we receive compensation from featured professionals (a natural conflict of interest), we always operate with integrity and transparency to earn your trust. Wealthtender is not a client of these providers.