PARTING SHOT

There are things algorithms still can’ t do for advisory clients. Only you can.

VERY ADVISOR TODAY IS INUNDATED WITH HEADLINES TELLing them that artificial intelligence is about to change everything.( And by headlines, I mean the slightly panicked conversations you hear at every industry conference near the coffee station.) Robo platforms are evolving. AI can now write quarterly commentary, build portfolios and even draft emails that sound suspiciously like you after two cups of coffee. Some firms are even piloting AI-driven humanoid service avatars— a concept that feels only slightly less frightening than a Roomba with financial licensing. But here’ s the paradox: As wealth management becomes more digitized, the more valuable the human becomes.

Clients don’ t wake up at 2 a. m. wondering about their weighted average expense ratios. They wake up worrying about whether they’ ll run out of money. Whether their kids will be OK. Whether their retirement will still feel like a reward if inflation keeps behaving like it’ s auditioning for a Fast & Furious sequel. No robot, no matter how many machine-learning models it has been trained on, can truly understand those fears.

And yet many advisors are leaning so hard into efficiency and automation that they’ re unintentionally removing themselves from the parts of the job that clients value most. If you’ re not careful, AI may not replace you— but you could accidentally replace yourself with it.

There’ s a reason family offices— the gold standard for high-trust, long-horizon wealth management— have always prioritized continuity, empathy, and personal connection over shiny dashboards and complicated performance charts. They understand something timeless: Financial advice is not a data problem. It’ s a hu-

Financial advice is not a data problem. It’ s a human relationship problem.

man relationship problem. Technology can gather facts. Humans interpret meaning.

The danger is real: Clients increasingly feel like account numbers, not people. With more automation, more chatbots, more templated updates, they lose any sense that their advisor sees them as unique. And that erosion of trust doesn’ t merely weaken a relationship; it destroys it over time. Studies show that investors will fire an advisor not because of performance, but because they don’ t feel understood. Even during a bull market, indifference kills.

The advisors who thrive from here forward will be the ones who embrace the most underrated alpha strategy in the profession: emotional intelligence.

Empathy is not a“ soft skill.” It is the new alpha. It deepens trust. It protects clients from themselves. It unlocks referrals, loyalty, and share of wallet. Most important, it keeps humans from making disastrous, fear-driven decisions— the ones that can permanently derail decades of planning faster than a single bad quarter ever could. continued on page 58

60 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2025 WWW. FA-MAG. COM