For years, advisors built their practices on referrals, networking, and persistence.
Those fundamentals still matter – but they no longer do all the heavy lifting.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with John O’Connell, founder and CEO of The Oasis Group and our own Ned Dane, Chief Growth Officer at Advisor Engine, for a webinar exploring the accelerating role of AI in wealth management – and what it means for advisor growth.
Our discussion made one thing clear: advisors can no longer rely solely on traditional tactics. Growth today demands a strategic blend of technology, data-driven insights and personalized client engagement to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market.
“People are researching and coming to conclusions before they even engage with an advisor's website,” said Dane, “They’re using large language models, building shortlists and only then reaching out. That fundamentally changes how advisors need to think about growth.”
In that environment, prospecting isn’t about volume. It’s about timing, relevance and probability.
That’s where AI-powered prospecting has quickly become a competitive advantage.
“Artificial intelligence has really taken the wealth management space by storm over the last 12 months – and even that might be an understatement,” said O’Connell.
Across industries, roughly 80% of U.S. workers admit to using AI on the job. In wealth management, adoption is accelerating just as quickly – often faster than formal policy or governance can keep up.
“By the time surveys are published, the numbers are already outdated,” O’Connell said. “The pace of advancement we’re seeing every few months is compressing everything. What looks conservative on paper is already behind what’s happening in the field.”
Roughly 70% of advisors report using generative AI today, and nearly half expect AI to be embedded across most of their tools within one to three years. In practice, AI is already woven into day-to-day workflows – sometimes intentionally, sometimes quietly.
The implication is clear: firms are already in the AI era, whether they’ve formally planned for it or not.
Early AI adoption focused on efficiency – note-taking, meeting prep and workflow automation. Prospecting represents a more strategic shift.
“Prospecting has always involved a lot of heartburn,” Dane said. “You chase a lead, it goes dead and you don’t always know why. What AI does is take a lot of that guesswork out of the process.”
Traditional prospecting tools identify who might fit basic criteria. AI prospecting focuses on who is most likely to engage now.
“At the end of the day, what you’re trying to do is find the people with the highest propensity to buy from you,” O’Connell said. “That means having a clear ideal client profile and the ability to search the universe for people who actually match it.”
Modern AI prospecting platforms analyze career changes, liquidity events, geography, firm affiliations and behavioral signals – then rank opportunities so advisors know where to focus first.
“These tools don’t just give you names,” Dane added. “They help you decide which phone calls are worth making and which conversations are likely to matter.”
Prospecting has historically relied on instinct and experience. AI adds probability.
“If you know who you serve well, these tools are excellent at helping you find other people who look like those clients,” Dane said. “And not just look like them – but look like them at the right moment in time.”
That might mean identifying prospects experiencing a life-stage transition, working at a company undergoing a liquidity event or entering a period where advice becomes particularly valuable.
“AI can pull together all those threads at scale,” Dane said. “That’s something no advisor – or team – can do manually across an entire market.”
The result is outreach that is more targeted, more timely and more likely to resonate.
One of the clearest messages from The Oasis Group’s research is that AI prospecting is not a monolith.
“There is no single ‘best’ tool,” O’Connell said. “There are tools that are better or worse depending on your use case.”
The research evaluated platforms using more than 160 criteria across search granularity, CRM integration, firm-level configuration, user experience, security, service models and technology roadmaps.
“Some tools are broad and flexible. Others are powerful in narrow, specific use cases,” O’Connell explained. “A lower score doesn’t mean a tool won’t work for you – it often just means it’s designed for something more focused.”
The mistake, he cautioned, is letting technology drive strategy instead of the other way around.
“You have to start with how you grow and who you serve,” he said. “Then you choose the technology that supports that.”
Rather than diminishing the advisor, AI prospecting sharpens where human value matters most.
“The advisor role really breaks into two parts,” Dane said. “The mechanics of the job – and the guiding part.”
AI increasingly takes over mechanical work: research, preparation, data gathering and follow-up. What remains is judgment, empathy and trust.
“So much of the mechanical side can now be assisted – or even turbocharged – by AI,” Dane said. “That frees advisors to spend more time on the work clients actually value.”
In prospecting, that means fewer cold starts and more informed, relevant conversations.
AI prospecting is no longer experimental. It is operational.
“We’re not even sure we’re in the first inning yet,” Dane said. “But the game is clearly underway.”
Firms that act now can build more predictable growth engines, reduce dependence on informal referral cycles, and meet prospects earlier in their decision journey. Firms that wait may still grow – but they’ll increasingly compete against advisors who know exactly who to contact, when to engage, and why it matters.
“Define your ideal client profile first,” O’Connell advised. “Then evaluate tools based on how well they support that – not on hype.”
In this next phase of wealth management, advantage won’t come from using AI first – but from using it deliberately.