In an industry driven by data-driven insights and rapid market changes, technology empowers financial advisors to stay ahead.
Technology helps financial advisors manage client portfolios more efficiently and accurately. It also enables new channels of communication with clients, making it easier to provide personalized advice and financial planning.
Joel Bruckenstein, the publisher of the T3 Tech Hub and the producer of the Technology Tools for Today (T3), is well-versed in all things technology. Here is what he had to say about the latest technology trends for financial advisors. Click on the video below to watch the full interview.
Transcript:
There are quite a few technology trends that I'd like to see advisors spending more time thinking about. One, which is a recurrent one over the last five years, in particular, is cybersecurity.
At the T3 conference we are going to have some content and hopefully some continuing education around that subject because I think it's a big subject. I think there are a lot of misconceptions in the industry about what advisors should be doing and what they are doing.
A trend that I don't even think is really emerging yet, but it's about to, is estate planning. Estate planning is probably the most overlooked aspect of financial planning. It's one that both advisors and their clients sometimes like to avoid. Clients in particular because nobody likes to contemplate their death. But as you know, we have some major state laws, tax laws that are sunsetting over the next several years, and it's going to cause a lot of change in estate planning documents. And I don't think the industry is well prepared for it.
You know, I think a lot of advisors have trouble staying ahead of the curve when it comes to technology – and I think there are a few reasons for that. One thing that I would say is it's constantly evolving. So if you're not up on it, you falling behind. You need to have at least one person in your firm who's staying up on what's going on in the industry and outside of the industry because sometimes there are really cool technologies that maybe are not native to our industry that you can adopt to your industry.
Another thing is [having] an annual tech plan and an annual tech review. Most advisors have a marketing plan. Most advisors have a business plan. Very few advisors have a written technology plan. So if you don't have a plan you're not going to execute on it and things are going to fall through the cracks and you're going to miss things.
I'll tell you one thing I learned with regard to AI -- AI is evolving much faster than I thought it was. I was talking actually to somebody who works in an AI lab yesterday at lunchtime and he was telling me that the accuracy of text-to-voice is getting much better, computer conversation is getting much better, and also the ability to do a synopsis of a large piece of text and making meaningful in let's say an executive summary is getting much better. So those kinds of technologies are moving at a really rapid rate. Much, much faster than I would have expected.
