AI for Financial Advisors: Scale Smarter, Not Harder
Here is a number worth sitting with: AI adoption among independent RIAs has more than doubled since 2023. Today, 63% of advisors are using AI tools in some capacity, according to a 2025 Charles Schwab study. That sounds impressive. Until you dig a little deeper and find that only about one in ten of those same advisors have actually woven AI into their broader business strategy. The rest are mostly using it to take meeting notes.
That gap, between adopting AI and actually using it well, is where the real opportunity lives. And right now, most firms are leaving it wide open.
Why it matters: Advisors who use AI strategically are compressing hours of administrative work into minutes. That time goes back to clients. It is a genuine competitive edge, and it is still early enough to claim it.
1. Know what AI is actually good at.
Think high-volume, pattern-based, and research-heavy tasks. Drafting client communications. Summarizing meeting notes. Building first-cut investment commentary. Prepping for quarterly reviews. For most advisors, these tasks eat up hours every week. AI does not replace the judgment behind them. It compresses the time it takes to execute them.
2. Know what AI cannot do.
Northwestern Mutual's 2025 Planning and Progress Study found that 47% of Americans would prefer working with a financial advisor who knows how to use AI as a planning tool. Not an AI tool. An advisor who uses AI. Clients want their advisor, amplified. They are not looking for a chatbot with a fiduciary duty. Judgment, empathy, and trust are still irreducibly human. That is still the job.
3. Start with one or two specific workflows.
The advisors getting the most out of AI are not the ones who bought every available tool. They picked two or three pain points and applied AI purposefully to those. A good starting point: try an AI notetaker in your next client meeting (Jump and Zocks are both category leaders), then use a generative tool to draft your follow-up. Do that consistently for a month. See what changes.
4. Have the compliance conversation now.
A 2025 ISS Market Intelligence survey found that 78% of RIAs have no written policies on AI use. That is not just a gap. It is a liability. Before you put any AI tool into a client-facing workflow, know what data it retains, how it handles sensitive information, and whether its output could be construed as regulated advice. Build good habits now, before regulators require it.
5. Think strategy, not just tools.
Two-thirds of advisors expect AI to be transformative to financial advice within three years, per the Schwab study. The firms that will benefit most are not the ones that adopted it earliest. They are the ones that adopted it most intentionally. AI should amplify what makes you valuable to clients. The technology is widely available. How you use it is the differentiator.