FA’ S 2025 RIA SURVEY & RANKING

HOW ADVISORS FOUND EMPLOYEES IN LAST 3 YEARS

Referrals From Other Employees

Referrals From Outside Sources

Through College Placement Programs 29.32 %

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But she adds that humans have to be in the picture, especially where regulators are involved.“ AI can hallucinate, right? And so you really do need to make sure that you’ re keeping a human in the loop somewhere.”

Peter Mallouk, the president and CEO of Overland Park, Kan.-based Creative Planning, says AI is going to be important for both advisors’ internal operations and business development.“ I think also some firms have been able to use AI as a search function internally and also on websites where they’ re dealing with a lot of clients that might be 401( k) participants or something like that,” he says.“ So it’ s allowed for more efficient advice.”

“ We’ ve created an AI council... to drive our AI thought process. We’ ve only been doing it let’ s say for the last six months, and we’ ve already been able to take 30,000 hours of unproductive time out of the system.”

43.29 %

— JOHN BUNCH, CEO, ALLWORTH

72.88 %

73.15 %

The playing field is going to get increasingly uneven.“ I think over the next few years is where it’ s going to get a lot more interesting, where [ AI ] will start to review insurance policies and estate plans and tax returns,” Mallouk says.“ And then I think shortly thereafter that, it will be preparing tax returns and drafting legal documents as well. So it’ s going to be fascinating how quick this goes.”

When it comes to business development, Mallouk thinks AI is going to enable firms to better target the right potential clients with the right messages.“ Right now, you reach out to clients, you know, whether it’ s TV or radio or internet or whatever, and AI is going to help you target that audience and craft a message to that audience more efficiently.”

The organic growth problem is likely to get worse, says John Bunch, the chief executive officer at Allworth( he’ s also a former COO at Edelman Financial Engines). That’ s especially true in strange economic times when clients are hesitant to do anything, much less reach out to advisors, because they’ d rather make no decision than a bad one. And at this time of uncertainty, he says advisory firms can’ t let themselves fall behind the times when it comes to automation and the evolution of AI. Firms that don’ t invest in it are going to be at a disadvantage, he says.

“ We’ ve created an AI council [ at Allworth ],” he says,“ an internal kind of team to actually drive our AI thought process. We’ ve only been doing it let’ s say for the last six months, and we’ ve already been able to take 30,000 hours of unproductive time out of the system. I would say we’ re in the very early stages of this.”

Thirty thousand hours? How did they do that, you might ask?

Yes

No

If YES, how often are they working from home?

30 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | JULY / AUGUST 2025 WWW. FA-MAG. COM