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[AI agents are coming to financial firms to revitalize and modernize their middle office operations. For many firms, the middle office has become the single greatest drag on scale — and AI agents directly target this structural constraint. Weighed down by disconnected legacy systems, error-prone manual processes, and large personnel headcounts, middle office operations have long been a major bottleneck for asset management and wealth management firms.
Rather than replacing systems, the latest AI solutions are being engineered to work across them – streamlining workflows and enabling firms to adapt quickly to market and individualize client needs. Yet, it has given some business leaders pause since these AI solutions are arriving as an unusual manifestation of technology.
To get a better understanding of these AI agents and the issues involved, we reached out to Tom Van Horn, Chief Operating Officer of TIFIN AXIS – a productivity platform of AI agents designed to modernize financial services middle office operations by improving efficiency, reducing risk, and removing bottlenecks limiting growth.
Tom brings deep expertise in product, technology, and operations in wealth and asset management to this discussion. We asked him to share his knowledge and experiences on how the latest applications of AI technology are truly transforming the financial services industry.]
Hortz: Please help us conceptualize this. What is the function of a platform of AI agents and what does it look like?
Van Horn: First off, it is important to set the foundation that TIFIN has been implementing AI for workflows in the financial services industry for more than 5 years. There is a lot of buzz around AI and Agents, but what makes this technology distinct is the ability to apply intelligence within an operations layer, not only automate tasks. This intelligence allows reasoning and actions across existing technology stacks and operational workflows without the need to replace or convert heavily embedded systems.
In order to deliver this operational upgrade, an AI agent platform comprises tech tools and capabilities such as orchestrators, coordinators, Large Language Models (LLMs), computer use models, calculators, and financial scenarios.
Hortz: How did you design your AI agent platform to address your financial clients’ needs?
Van Horn: Our talented engineers and dedicated experience in activating this technology into production environments in the heavily regulated financial sector is what has accelerated the build and adoption of TIFIN’s agentic workflow application – the AXIS platform. This determined focus has driven us to construct an intelligent and financial services domain-knowledgeable “agent of agents” architecture. This allows for multiple deep and specialized workflows and tools with reasoning ability that can be coordinated centrally. Leveraging a rich “context engine” allows for situational awareness across multiple agents that work in coordination with each other. It functions much like an operations associate coordinating with co-workers that touch multiple systems while completing a workflow.
An example would be onboarding a new client at an RIA firm. To fully onboard a new client, the firm must touch anywhere from five to ten pieces of technology that all have their role in facilitating financial services operations – from CRM, client billing, financial planning, portfolio reporting, tax transition, model platforms, advisor compensation, risk assessment systems, and so on. These deeply embedded AI agent applications are what allows something like TIFIN AXIS to unlock efficiency through applying a digital workforce that can navigate and reason across this fragmented technology layer.
Hortz: Can you tell us about some of your strategic partners that are helping accelerate your platform buildout and how you work with them?
Van Horn: When tackling complex workflows and focusing on business outcomes for our customers, to execute with quality and speed, we need to lean into our core competencies and partner where it makes sense. Leveraging out-of-the-box capabilities through best-in-class partners like AWS, Palantir, and various small and large LLMs gives us a head start to construct and fine-tune a product that is domain-specific.
In wealth, investments, and insurance, the workflows are complex and require a significant layer of depth to execute. General advancement of core broad range capabilities allows us to focus and build the expertise to generate business outcomes. It is very important in this domain that users only interact within an infrastructure, like ours, which allows for the proper implementation of security and compliance controls.
Hortz: How do you then collaborate with your clients to apply your AI agent platform and technology to their specific operational needs?
Van Horn: We build generalized agents that are domain-specific and apply them in a firm-specific implementation to enhance each client’s operating model and business outcomes. You can think of form-filling agents, client knowledge agents, onboarding agents, and data conversion agents (CRM to CRM, portfolio reporting to portfolio reporting system) as the general starting point.
When we work with our clients, we document existing workflows in detail to unlock capacity and bring down the time to workflow completion with improved accuracy. An example would be a large M&A transaction where a firm joins an RIA aggregator. There are many steps that pull data, rationalize, convert, and audit across multiple existing systems to transition that firm to operate on a brand-new technology stack.
This is where using agents to perform the extraction, validation, insertion, connecting, and auditing can increase accuracy and lower firm onboarding time by 50%. It also positions firms’ employees to focus on higher-value work as SME’s handling complex escalations, rather than facilitating these workflows manually. The business outcome is faster time to billing, more parallelization of multiple transitions with existing staff, better service for the end clients, less resources involved in the process that touch the data, and ultimately better business outcomes for all stakeholders.
Hortz: What type of large financial enterprises are you working with and how are you helping them to redesign and reimagine their middle office operations?
Van Horn: To date high growth firms are showing a lot of interest in redesigning how they operate so they are positioned to differentiate themselves in the next 5 years. Many firms, as they go through high-growth periods in their businesses, simply throw bodies at tasks and workflows in order not to trade off the current levels of service.
Executives are very aware that this is not the model for the future during the next growth phase. This is where a technology partner can reinvent how these firms look at operating margins and unlock investment in more impactful areas of their business. This applies to brokerages, family offices, RIAs, and large Aggregators.
Hortz: What kind of outcomes and strategic benefits can be conservatively expected for both RIAs and enterprise firms?
Van Horn: Using agents is the future will achieve better operating margins. How the firm translates these efficiencies into high-impact areas of their business will ultimately unlock the next level of growth and differentiation.
Just as if someone imagined their business operating without budget constraints on employee spend. What could the business do if that was not a constraint? If we had all the time and resources, what could we accomplish? This mindset aligns well with the implementation of an agentic workforce, as they can see material gains across those current constraints.
Hortz: What do you recommend as the best approach or mindset for financial firms to employ to help them be successful in incorporating AI agent technology into their businesses?
Van Horn: The technology is moving so fast, and the engineering skillsets to execute at the highest quality require building and maintaining these solutions as a core competency. Every firm should be doing things internally beyond experimentation, using AI and agents where they can. But, to unlock material value from a firm’s highly complex operations is where they should partner with a firm like TIFIN AXIS.
Lastly, firms should find that partner and get going. Too much time can be wasted trying to narrow in on details and finding the “perfect” use case to tackle. Find something easily measurable at your firm (even if small) and implement and expand from there. If you get going, you will not look back.
Ultimately, AI agents give firms the chance to redesign operations around intelligence rather than headcount. The firms moving now are not just improving workflows — they are elevating what their middle office can enable. For many, that shift becomes the foundation for their next decade of growth.
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.