Where AI Falls Short for Wealthy Investors Video from Savant Wealth Management.

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Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us today. For those of you whose first Savant webinar this is, welcome. For those of you who have joined us before, welcome back. We’ve got a really great topic to discuss today, one that’s talked about quite a bit in the news and financial world today. We’re going to be talking about Beyond the Algorithm, Where AI Falls Short. I’m Evan Goldfuss. I’m a financial advisor with Savant down here in our Atlanta office, and I’m joined here today with my friend and fellow advisor, Chris Carlson. Welcome, Chris.
Thanks so much. I’m up here in our Plymouth, Michigan office. And before we dive in, just a little housekeeping. If questions come up along the way, just drop them into the Q&A box. We’ll save some time at the end to answer as many as we can. You’ll also get a link to watch this recording sent to you via email in the next day or two, so no need to write everything down.
And then just one last thing upfront. Neither of us is here to tell you to stop using AI. We both use it every day in our practices. Our goal today is really to explain to you how you can use it wisely and show you where it can steer you potentially in the wrong direction when it comes to your money.

So to lay out the agendas today, here’s where we’re headed. We will start where AI falls short because that’s probably why most of you signed up today. Then we’ll flip it and look at what AI actually does really well in wealth management. And from there, we’ll talk about what happens when you put AI in the hands of an experienced advisor and why that combination matters. We’ll finish with some practical ways to get started today, including one simple prompt that you can use before you ever sit down with your advisor. And then we’ll wrap up with key takeaways and your questions.

All right. Well, perfect. Well, I’ll kick us off. Let’s go ahead and start with a quick show of hands. And yes, I know this is a webinar, so if everybody could just raise your hand or nod at your screen here. How many people here today have asked an AI tool a money question probably really late at night that you would maybe never even ask a real person? Chris, I’m going to go ahead and ask you to raise your hand too because I know we’ve both been there. So that’s not actually a bad thing. And really it’s one of the best things about these tools. They’re always there. They’re never really judging you. In some cases, they don’t even send you a bill. It doesn’t even cost you anything. So that also is what makes them probably a little more easy to trust than we really should at times.

So what we want to talk about first, with AI usage continuing to go up and up, it’s obviously becoming more and more of a thing every day. We’re seeing this a lot more and more in the world of wealth management, which personally I think is great. I love seeing people more interested in finances, in planning, and using those available tools to learn more and be more proactive.

However, when I talk to people, or see their printouts or their phone conversations that they’ve had with AI, the questions on average kind of fall into these four buckets. And the ones on the right side are pretty good. Explain this to me. I love that. That’s AI being our tutor, and maybe even our psychologist late at night. What should I ask my advisor? That’s also great. We love that. We want people to be more prepared and proactive, bring that list all day and we’ll happily take it.

But then there’s the more specific topics, and asks. Should I buy this stock? Is the market going up or down? Or even build me a complete financial plan. So we obviously know AI can’t necessarily predict the future. It’s not that good, maybe not yet, but these bigger, broader questions like build me a complete financial plan, those are where you can get into trouble.
Asking AI to build your financial plan is kind of like one question. Think about it like asking a question to an architect designing your house. Hey, I want three bedrooms. I just want a nice kitchen. And that’s all you say. You’ll get a house, but it’s not going to be your house and it may not be the best house. So that’s what we really want to focus on today. None of these are really bad questions necessarily, but it’s really paramount to understand the limitations of these tools and where things can really go wrong.

So when Chris and I compared notes and talked about our experiences and what we’re seeing, we kept coming back to the same seven ways that AI can somewhat steer you wrong with your money in some cases. It can sound right even when it’s wrong. It’s only as good as what you give it. It tells you what you want to hear. It can’t predict the market. It can’t see your whole life. It isn’t accountable for your outcome. And what you share may not stay private or confidential. Now, before anybody unplugs their laptop and throws it in the lake declaring it useless, notice the bottom of the slide here. We’re, again, not saying that any of these are reasons to avoid AI, but they are really great reasons to be smart with your approach and to keep an expert in the loop.

So we want to take a closer look at these, starting with number one, which is genuinely tough. AI can sound right even when it’s wrong. This is really hard for individuals, and even sometimes experts alike, to distinguish what is factual or false, or maybe just not even cited or supported. Some of you may have even seen this case. Back in 2023, a pair of attorneys in New York filed a brief in federal court. It cited six earlier court cases that supported their argument. Strong cases, perfect quotes, had citations and the whole nine yards. There was just one problem. None of those cases actually existed. The AI tool that they were using at the time had invented them. And when one of the attorneys even asked whether the cases were real, it said yes. So needless to say, the judge in that case was not abused and those attorneys were sanctioned. It can be a dangerous thing. These were lawyers, these were trained professionals, and even they still got fooled because the answer that they were seeing looked like the right answer.

So we’ll ask you to try this sometime. Ask an AI something probably more complex that you know cold, your career, maybe even a hobby that you’ve had for 20 years, chances are you’re going to spot some mistakes within about 10 seconds. Then try asking it something you don’t know. There could be still several, maybe even plenty of mistakes layered in there, but it’s going to sound completely convincing and 100% accurate to you, and you might not even know. So when it comes to your money or a major financial decision, a confident but wrong answer can be very expensive and sometimes things you can’t even undo. You may not even find out that it was wrong for years to come. So that’s why it helps to have an expert in the chair behind that tool, or working in tandem with that tool rather.

So number two, AI is really only as good as what you give it. Back in the 1800s, Charles Babbage, he was a man that designed one of the very first mechanical computers. He’d wrote to members of Parliament, they had sat there and asked him, and I’m quoting this, they say, “Hurray, Mr. Babbage. If you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” And obviously he laughed and he said he couldn’t even understand the confusion of ideas that would lead someone to ask that. Over 150 years later from that time period, we’re still kind of asking that same exact question, but obviously with a much more sophisticated and fancier machine.

So think about calling your doctor and saying, “I don’t feel great. What should I take?” A good doctor is not just going to answer that. They’re not just going to have an answer right off the bat. They’re going to say, “How old are you? What are your symptoms? What are you already taking?” If you ask AI that same thing, it might just answer you right off the bat without asking more clarifying questions.

The same goes for your finances. Your age, your tax bracket, which accounts your money is in and how much is in each, when you want to retire. Most people may not know why those specifics and details are really important. An advisor does, and they know what can and can’t be left out. Vague in, generic out, wrong in, wrong out. Either way, with AI, it can sometimes still come out sounding very confident, so that can be a dangerous thing from time to time.

Here’s a hypothetical example on this. On the left, the question most people type or starting off with, “What should my investment strategy be?” Seven words, totally reasonable. You know what you’re trying to say, right? Easy. On the right, same question, but now AI actually knows who it’s talking to. They know the situation. You’re 58 years old, you’re married, retiring at 65, you got 1.4 million saved, you’re in the 24% tax bracket, and want $9,000 a month in income and you want to help your grandkids out.

And my favorite part of that one, with a really good question, is that last line. It doesn’t just ask for an answer. It asks AI to explain the trade-offs and the risks and to say what does it still need to know? That’s the complete question that a real planner is going to ask. Here’s the catch. The whole point of this slide right here is that the prompt on the right, it comes because that’s the expertise. The prompt is really just the evidence of it. So you have to already know which details matter to have that sophisticated of a prompt and really know what to ask it in the right way.

So what actually comes back when you ask these kinds of questions, not detailed or detailed? The short question is going to give you really the short answer. Diversify across stocks and bonds, consider your risk tolerance. My personal favorite there, consult a financial professional. We don’t ask for it to say that by the way, just for disclosure. But none of that is really wrong. It’s just kind of like a fortune cookie. It could apply to anybody. It’s oftentimes vague and doesn’t actually help move the needle.

The detailed question gets you something very real, whether those savings can support $9,000 a month, which accounts to draw from first to manage taxes, and the risks to plan for like a market drop right before retirement or healthcare costs before Medicare kicks in. It even tells you what’s missing, Social Security, pensions, other income that you absolutely want to factor in to a holistic financial plan.

And that’s a generally good starting point, but think of it like those home inspection reports. Are they useful? Absolutely. But you still need someone who knows what to fix first, what can wait, and what it all means for you, and what the total cost is going to be. Even a better answer needs an expert to check it and turn it into an actionable plan.

So number three, and this is my favorite one here, AI often tells you what you want to hear, and I’m sure we’ve all kind of seen this a little bit before if we have used these tools. Anybody over here, I would be pretty surprised, but has anybody ever heard of Clever Hans, the horse? So a little bit of backstory about him. In Berlin, he was a horse in the early 1900s. Yes, a horse, but a very famous horse. And supposedly he could do arithmetic. So people would line up, and they’d ask him what’s three plus two, and he’d tap his hoof five times and the crowds would explode. They loved them. And all the experts at the time were like, “What is going on here? Surely something more is at foot.”

So finally, a psychologist came out, took a good look at Clever Hans, and he figured out what was actually going on. Hans was actually not doing math at all. He couldn’t do math. But what he was doing was taking a look at the person asking the question and he was reading them. When he got to the right number after being asked a math question, the questioner would visibly relax even ever so slightly. The horse would pick up on that and he would stop stomping his hoof when he got to the right number. So what happened was when the questioner didn’t even know the answer to the math question they were asking, the horse was obviously lost.

So AI, very weird story, but AI can be a little bit like Clever Hans. It’s very, very good about picking up which way you’re leaning and actively leaning with you. You can obviously tell it to, hey, push back on me or don’t be nice or dispute me here. And it can, and maybe it will for a little bit, but ultimately it ends up drifting back to probably agreeing with you.
Fiduciary advisor, on the other hand, is supposed to do the exact opposite in most cases. A fiduciary is designed to act in your best interest even when that means saying, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” So that’s the double whammy there. Wrong information that makes you feel good is easily the hardest kind to catch and it can be very tough.

So number four, no one can predict the market, not even AI, as sophisticated as it might seem. So the question we hear more than any other, especially when the news gets very loud, as it can these days, is some version of, “Should I get out of the market or is now a really good time to get in or buy more?” And more and more people are starting to ask AI this question first.
AI is really great at this homework. It can pull together research, it can summarize the headlines, and explain what’s going on. But what it can’t do is tell you what the market will do next month because absolutely nobody can. It’s kind of like the weather. You take a look and the forecaster can tell you, “Hey, you definitely want to bring an umbrella out tomorrow. It’s going to rain with 90% certainty.” However, if you take that forecaster, and you say, “Hey, what’s the weather going to be like on a random Tuesday, maybe six months from now?” I guarantee you they’re going to have the same exact answer of, “I have no idea.”

So markets work very similar in the same way. The hardest part about investing usually isn’t knowing what to do. It’s sticking with it when the market drops and even when headlines say to run. So AI won’t necessarily sit across the table from you on the really tough days when we’re seeing some red, but an advisor will. It may not be as flashy or feel as high tech, but it’s what still works for the long-term investor, diversification, rebalancing, and managing to the right risk level for you and your plan.

The other version about this question that we see a lot is about one specific stock, usually the one everybody’s talking about, a hot stock and the biggest talk of the town. Here’s the hypothetical here. We see it all the time. A prospective person comes in with a list of questions about a hot and upcoming IPO valuations. They’ve got price to earnings ratios, launch timing, all this other data, really sharp questions. And most of the time you can probably tell that AI helped write them.

But AI can build a really great case for a stock or an investment, and that can be the problem. It’ll make the bull case sound pretty much airtight for a home run. But the way we approach it, we’re not going to debate the stock, we’re not going to take that on for face value. We’re going to ask three different questions. We’re going to say, how much of your wealth is already in one place when really thinking about is this stock right for your plan or your long-term investment? How much of your wealth is already in one place? Does it actually fit your goals and your timeline? And really the big one here, what happens to your plan if that investment drops 40%? Can you still meet your goals and make it to the end of your plan without having an issue?
Those are the questions that, as planners, we really want to drive the whole conversation, and they bring us right back to what works. Like we said, diversification, rebalancing, and managing risk. Those are good questions about your plan that really matter rather than just good questions about a single stock or where the market is going. Chris, you want to go ahead and take the last three from here?

Sure. Let’s jump into number five. So AI cannot see your whole life. As a thought experiment, look at that bottom line there. Two families, identical balance sheets, they can potentially need very different plans. Imagine they’re the same age, same savings, all of the details that are on the surface look the same. But now imagine that one family owns a business and is looking to pass that business on to heirs or find someone to take it over, and the other family wants to retire early and travel. Those are two completely different paths for them to try to take. So the numbers look the same, but the plans could be completely different. That’s one thing that AI would have trouble discerning if you don’t give it that information that you would generally get when you’re having a conversation with an advisor.

AI only knows what you type into it. So the things that matter most really come up in conversation. So whether you have family details, not to mention your emotions. We as advisors, we can see in a meeting when something is important. We can see it on the face. An AI is just not going to be able to experience that. And not to mention the history you have with an advisor. If you have a long-term relationship, many, many years, there’s going to be a history there that can be pulled up and remembered and considered that AI would long forget if you tried to use it in that way.

And not to mention just your values. Really understanding what you want and how that gets communicated because generally there’s a question under the question. You may type something in really clear to the AI, but we as advisors have the experience to know that there is this underlying value that’s driving those questions. And those things are just not going to come up using AI.

All right. So number six, AI isn’t accountable for your outcome. So simply put, if the market drops 20%, is the AI going to be there to help you through it? Is it going to be there to bounce ideas back and forth? Is it going to be there to basically say, okay, let’s calm down and let’s make a plan. Just think about how it works. When you ask AI a question, that’s it. The conversation just ends. And unless you go back to it and continue to add data, add information and ask more questions, you’re not going to get a response. It’s not going to notice the things that, when your life changes, a new grandchild, health event, job change, it just doesn’t own the result if things go wrong like you would experience with an advisor.
There’s really no duty to act in your best interest either. So making sure that there is a fiduciary on your side that is going to walk with you when things get bumpy, when that roller coaster is going up and down, having somebody there with you to help adjust course or make a change is going to be extremely important. And so you really just need to ask yourself, who’s going to be accountable, the advisor year after year or just the machine when you put in a question?

All right, number seven. And this one I think is pretty intuitive. What you share may not stay private. If you’ve grown up or used the internet since you’ve been younger until you’ve aged a little bit, we’ve always been skeptical, making sure that our credit card information doesn’t get there, our Social Security information doesn’t get there.

I think that that still holds true as a good sound practice, but like Evan mentioned earlier, AI tools, they are very good at sounding confident. They reduce the alarm bells in our head, and it may make us feel comfortable sharing that information because we’re getting very good sounding outputs in return. But just like you would with any other information, make sure that you are not giving up things like your account numbers, your Social Security numbers, black those out, or don’t include them at all.

One other thing that you can do as a best practice is make sure that whatever AI tool that you’re using in those settings, you can actually select to keep your data private, or that the tool can use that to train future models. So if you try to keep your data private, it’s just one more little step to protect what you have.

And then secondly, or lastly I should say, that when you work with an advisor, it is completely reasonable to ask them which tools that they use. Understand how they protect your information. There could be a very big difference between the tool that you’re using publicly versus the one that they’re using as an institution, and some of the safeguards that they have for those specific items.

All right, so we talked about where AI falls short, but there’s definitely some strengths in AI. I think we all have felt that. I think we’ve all experienced that. And just with the advancement of the tool itself in almost every area that we notice in business, in government, in personal lives, there’s definitely strengths. So let’s talk a little bit about what those strengths are.
So what AI does exceptionally well is data processing at scale. So it can take huge amounts of data, process that information in seconds, spot trends, spot anomalies, monitor that information. And that’s just something that would take a human being many, many hours to do. So it certainly can speed up the process of managing that data.

Second is automation. So the repetitive work that used to take hours, so a lot of monitoring, the routine work, reporting, you can get great reports from factual data very fast, which again, takes a lot of time for a human advisor to do, but it goes very quickly for the AI. And then lastly is the pattern recognition. This is, again, using the data that’s public, public markets, we think markets are efficient, using that data to do some market analyst, to do some screening for some risk, to model scenarios. These are all things that can be done much, much faster than a human being can do at this time. But notice that the line on the bottom there, AI excels at processing information, but it doesn’t truly understand the human circumstances. So keep that in mind as we go through these because the real value shows up when the strength of the AI is actually paired with an advisor.

So here’s what those strengths look like in practice, and when they’re paired with an advisor, we can talk a little bit about how that amplifies the performance of, I guess, both the tool and the advisor. So because it can go through that data quickly, hours of work in seconds, it can review all the statements, it can turn months of bank and credit card statements into clear cash flow picture instead of that back of the napkin math that most of us rely on. What this really means is less time gathering the numbers, less time working on the spreadsheet in a meeting, and more time talking with your advisor about what’s important and truly important to you.

So automation. So AI can take notes, it can summarize the meeting, it can give follow-up tasks. It can make sure that things don’t fall through the crack. If you’re having a very lively conversation with your advisor, and there’s an important point that comes through and you move on quickly, there’s a risk that it could potentially get forgotten about. Well, the AI is going to catch that and make sure that you are going to circle back to that later after that meeting.

And then patterns. So AI is great at analyzing the market data and modeling what if scenarios. So this means that we can test your plan against many possible futures, not just one straight line projection, but really see are the goals that you have reasonable? Do you need to save more? Could you retire early? Sort of all of these main questions can be analyzed very quickly and we can come to a clearer path when we explore that. But in every case, the value is, again, not just the question and the prompt, but it is knowing how to use this tool with an advisor that has that experience and history with you.

All right, so AI plus your advisor. So like we mentioned before, the advisor holds the key to your whole picture. And so having it all fit together in a coherent plan is really what you’re seeking, not just question, answer, question, answer. But here’s what I want to do, here’s how we use AI to organize, and then here’s how the advisor can explain it back and make that full picture a reality.

So think about the things that an advisor that needs to keep track of. So the facts of the plan, all the numbers and the assumptions, the goals in your head, updating for life changes, the items in the portfolio. So obviously you have different types of accounts, different balances, different tax outcomes, different risk tolerances, all of those items. Again, the conversation with that advisor, emotions come up, values come out, family goals and objectives come out. These things are generally not numbers, they are feelings and emotions and things that we want to achieve as individuals.

And then just your team, so making sure that you can coordinate with a CPA, your estate attorney, and really having that quarterback that can help oversee and make sure that it’s working efficiently. Really, no AI tool can see all these at once. It’s the advisor’s job to make sure that it’s all working together for you. All right, Evan, why don’t you jump in and talk about this example that came up as we were thinking about how to best explore some of these items here?

Yeah, I appreciate you letting me tell your story here, Chris. So for anybody on today’s webinar, maybe if you don’t know Chris, or don’t know him a little bit, Chris loves to work a little bit on his own car, likes to play mechanic on the weekends from time to time. And he says he’s pretty good at it, although that’s the only source I have was Chris. So if anybody else out there can verify that, let us know.

So here’s the thing. So when Chris is working on his car, for example, here’s the thing, with a toolbox that he has, and maybe looking through some YouTube videos and talking with an AI, walking him through that specific project and what he has to do step by step, he can probably get that job done. It may not be that hard. He can probably piecemeal it together and get through it. It might take him all day, he might ruin his entire weekend trying to fix one thing, and he might end up missing maybe even the smallest thing that he didn’t necessarily know what to look for.

That’s a little bit of an analogy here. So for example, instead of using Chris as the mechanic, what happens if we actually give a real mechanic the power and that same exact horsepower behind AI? If a mechanic’s using AI to do his job, he knows exactly where to check and why. And with that level of sophistication and horsepower, he knows all the inputs he needs, he knows what to look for, he knows what to ask, and he’s probably doing that project and completing it before lunch, a lot faster. And my guess, no offense, Chris, is that the car is probably going to run a little bit better and longer.

So same tool exactly here, completely different result in some cases. But the tool itself is not necessarily the hard part. It’s about knowing what to do with it and really how to use it and harness its full power. So you can absolutely use AI, just like Chris, with your own finances and with your money, but when it comes to your retirement, the bigger stuff, your retirement, your family, your legacy, your financial future really deserves that mechanic and that professional behind the screen.

So think about it like the difference between urgent care and a family doctor who’s known you for 20 years. Urgent care is going to be fast and completely confident. They’ll get the job done. But your family doctor is going to remember that your dad had heart trouble, you don’t like taking pills or you don’t like shots, or that you ran that marathon three years ago. So that history is part of the story and it changes the advice.

So that’s a big part of what AI can really do for advisors. It helps us be more focused on the important things like you. So less time on paperwork usually means more time actually listening and understanding. It helps us be better communicators in a complex field like financial planning and finance. There’s a lot of jargon and complex topics. AI can help us take those complex topics and turn them into clear meetings and actionable plans that you can really follow.

So it helps us be more holistic as well. AI helps us remember and build on years and years of conversations, just like Chris said. It helps us make sure that nothing falls through the cracks so that the things somebody mentioned three years ago about a daughter’s wedding or mom’s health, that never gets lost, and it’s always built into your plan. It helps us be prepared and ultimately ready when you are. So when life changes, or you’re ready to make a big financial decision, we can act quickly, strategically, and with as much information available as possible.

Our aim is to use technology that frees us up to focus on what really matters, which is the people and the conversations that we’re having. So take a hypothetical couple here, Mike and Sarah, whatever you want to call them. Before the first meeting, when we’re talking about what does working with an AI enabled advisor look like, that first meeting, before even walking in the door, that advisor’s done their homework, so they spend the first hour on the goals. They’re not filling out forms or any paperwork. They’re talking about history and where they’re trying to go.

Next, they’re talking about gathering details, and instead of six weeks of emailing back and forth for statements and extra missing pieces, all of that information gets synthesized and organized quickly and accurately. So then that advisor can build the plan and they run a deeper analysis on that plan and the whole portfolio much further and more detail than they could have years and years ago. And every piece of that is going to be checked and verified. That’s really the action plan here, or getting to the action plan after all that’s said and done.

What you receive, just like we said, of distilling down complex things, you’re not getting a 60-page binder that sits on a shelf, or where you have no idea where to start. You’re getting a clear visual prioritized list of here’s what we’re going to do first, second, third, here’s how we’re going to do it, here’s how everything flows. That’s really what helps us put this together and be better communicators and implementers.

So after every meeting, that hypothetical couple, Mike and Sarah, they get a prompt recap with one of the AI tools that was listening to the conversation. They get a good recap of what happened, what are the next steps? And they’re never in a spot of who’s wondering, hey, were we supposed to do this? Who was supposed to tackle that? What’s the next step? They know exactly what’s going on at all times. And then year after year, every single conversation builds on the last. So when Mike or Sarah retires or grandkid arrives, that story is updated, and it’s already baked into the plan. So ultimately what we try to say is that AI really helps do the heavy lifting so that the advisors can focus and do the thinking and do the talking and planning.
So really what we talk about and where we see the future is really making the best of both worlds. We kind of get that question of where does all this end up and what is it going to look like in the financial world? And so I always tell people planes have had autopilot for more than 100 years, and I have had somebody fact check me on that before, go look it up. One of the first autopilots was back in 1914. But we’ve had it for a very long time. But it may have only handled a little bit of the flying then. Today, it handles a huge share of the flying, but we still put two highly trained pilots in the cockpit for every single commercial flight. Why? Because going back, everybody saw this story. Going back to January 2009 when a flock of geese took out both engines of a plane leaving LaGuardia, it wasn’t the autopilot that landed the plane on the Hudson, it was Captain Sully and his copilot. He was the one that actually stepped in.
That’s really what the future of financial advice looks like. It isn’t AI versus advisors, it’s AI-enabled advisors, technology that handles more of the routine flying and an experienced human in the seat for moments that really matter. So technology enabled, relationship focused, strategically driven, that’s the kind of advisor that people should really be looking for. Chris, I’m going to go ahead and let you take it from here.

Sure. So let’s talk about how we get started today. So if you take one thing home, an actionable step today, let’s make it this. So people sometimes walk into a first meeting with an advisor without ever really trying to think through the big question, what do we want our money to do for us?
So here’s a simple way to get there. If you’ve never used AI in this capacity, I’m going to give you the first prompt here that you can use. So type in this. I’m preparing for my first meeting with a financial advisor. Interview me one question at a time about my goals, my concerns, and what I want my money to do for me and my family. Then summarize top priorities and the questions I should ask.

And what you’re going to get out of that is an actual interview. The AI is going to do exactly what you told it to do. It’s going to ask you questions that you wanted. You can give the context for that, and then at the end you’re going to get an output, a summary of those important things. And that’s a really great thing that you can then bring into that first meeting with an advisor.

Now, notice what isn’t asked in that prompt. There’s nothing about account numbers, balances, statements. All of that stuff can come second because really it’s just a conversation of what matters to you. If you have a spouse or a partner having that conversation together, it’s a great idea to actually do it with your partner because you might be surprised that maybe you don’t have the same answers that you thought you did. Maybe you thought you were aligned in a way that you would find out later that you’re not. So discovering that first and then bring it to an advisor is a really, really great exercise.

If you want to take it a step further, cashflow is a place to start. So like I mentioned in the last slide, there were no numbers there, but if you want to take that next step, it is one of the hardest things for us to come up with is to really understand what types of cashflow do potential prospects have? Is it through different sources, whether that is Social Security or income, wages, and things like that, and really understanding how that money goes out as well.

So what you can do is you can actually take a few months of your bank statements, of course with the important data removed, if we just have the transactions, that’s okay. And then you can upload it into the AI, and then you can begin to ask questions about where is my money going each month? What types of categories am I spending on? Is it food? Is it entertainment, gas, utilities?

And you can get a sense of what you have coming in, what you have going out, to really organize that thought. Because usually what we do is work backwards from say a prior year tax return. So we can have that tax return, we can see how much you made, and then we can just have that conversation. Well, what’d you spend your money on? How much did you save? And do that. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a much more efficient process to use that AI to gather that information first.

And then to, exactly like I said, summarize what those trends are. So like we mentioned before, AI is really good at spotting trends. And it can actually say, well, hey, I think that there’s a potential for you to save money in this area or that area, which you may not really know if you’re just running your credit card every couple of days throughout the month. You may not realize that there is a specific trend that you’re following through over time in a certain area.

And then bring it to your advisor. These are not bad questions. And the more data for us to get started with, the better. And so if you have a jump on that in an organization, that really helps.

Again, you’re avoiding the time that it takes to coalesce this information and you get to spend more time on actually talking about what’s important with the advisor.

All right. So some other best practices for using AI with your finances. So one, give it context. Like we mentioned in an earlier slide, the better information that you can provide it, the better outcomes that you will get. Ask it to push back. Because AI is generally coded in a way to want to please you as the user, you actually have to give it the permission to push back on some of your ideas. It’s okay for it to ask questions. If you have an idea and you run it through the tool, ask what am I missing? What are the risks? Don’t let it just give you an output that it thinks you want to hear. Make it push back on you so that you can really examine if you’re on the right track or not.

You can use the AI to ask four questions. So if you build in that history of your information, and give it the context that you want, it can help you ask questions that are pertinent to your specific situation instead of just generic questions that are you can do a Google search online and find the top 10 questions to ask your advisor, but if only two of those are relevant for your situation, it’s not a very useful list. So the AI tool can actually help you develop those questions in more detail.

Of course, number four, protect your privacy. We’re always going to preach that. So again, block out the numbers, don’t add Social Security numbers, don’t add any sort of passwords, don’t add birthdays, anything that can really identify you in that sense, please, please don’t provide.

And then number five, double check. So AI can be wrong. And so making sure that you verify is important, and that’s certainly where an advisor can come in. So getting a good, confident answer still can be wrong. And so if you can, number one, question it yourself, am I sure this is correct? Is there any way I can verify? And bringing that information in with an advisor is a great practice.

And then exactly there, number six, bringing in that expert. So having all of this preparation to bring into a conversation with an advisor is really the ultimate use of the tool as we see it. It saves time, it makes you more efficient. It just helps steer that conversation to what’s important and it keeps you away from doing all of the data entry and the analysis that takes time, but doesn’t necessarily provide that true deep value of what’s important to you.

All right. So here are some more example questions to ask an advisor. And so whether you work with us or anyone else, it’s important to ask the right questions. So just starting with the basics, are you a fiduciary? How are you paid? And what will I pay in total? Do you coordinate with a CPA or a state attorney? How do I build a plan around my goals, not just my portfolio? I think these are really great questions. These are pretty common ones that you may see if you search for questions online.

But since this is an AI webinar, two questions that people are really not asking yet is ask your advisor how do they use AI, and does a person review all of the outputs before it reaches the client, or just making sure that it’s not just an AI question and answer and then sent on to the client. There’s really that coordination with the advisor that is most important.

And then understanding how would your advisor protect your personal information? There is definitely sharing of information that needs to be done with a financial professional. And like we just preached to you throughout this whole webinar, is you’re protecting that data. Well, make sure you know how they’re also protecting that data if you were to provide that. You’re just looking for an advisor that uses AI well, not someone that avoids it and not someone who leans on it 100% for their outputs, but is really that coordination that works best.

And then finally, you can ask how often will we meet? How will we stay in touch, and how do you help clients stay disciplined in volatile markets? These are all very reasonable questions, and you may notice that it’s not 100% AI focused because there is still that human element that we want to make sure comes through when you’re interviewing an advisor. And of course you can ask the AI to tailor these questions for your situation specifically, and then bring that list to your first meeting with an advisor. So we’re happy to answer any one of those. All right, Evan, so what are some takeaways here that we want to make sure that everybody goes home with?

Yeah. So I think the key takeaways can really be summarized in really four things. One, AI is a very powerful tool, but it’s not complete wealth management solution. Like we said, there’s a lot that goes into financial planning, a lot of different pieces. It’s really important to know what matters, what can be left out, and really how to best use that tool to your biggest advantage, and like we said, harness the power of really both of those worlds, experts and technology.

So number two, it can sound right even when it might be wrong. It can tend to tell you what you want to hear. I think we stress this a lot today in just saying, for those of us that might be new to AI, it’s absolutely a really impressive tool. I think everybody can agree that it’s a very powerful, very impressive thing. But when we start going down rabbit holes and asking questions, you can find yourself saying, “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with this.” And so it really is important to pump those brakes sometimes and really you can trust, but make sure you verify at the end of the day. Take everything with a grain of salt, make sure you do your due diligence and fact check what you see before acting on anything I think is the most important piece.

Number three, your advisor, if you’re not working one, ultimately the advisor holds the keys to the whole picture, the plan, the portfolio, the full conversation, your history. AI in some cases might only be able to see the pieces. It’s a newer piece of technology, but your history, your life goes back much farther. So having a person and that expert behind the seat that does know that full history can go so much farther than just the AI can alone. So your advisor really knows how those pieces fit together, and like we said, can put those pieces together and form your long-term story rather than just piecemealing based off different questions and interviews.

So finally, look for an advisor who uses AI well to build better plans and ultimately provide a better experience for you. That is exactly what this is all about is, like we said, harnessing the power of technology, getting the best of both worlds. It really is an impressive technology. And it’s so important to, as this world is changing, as that technology continues to change, find and partner with people who are ahead of that curve and are staying on it and being able to provide better service, better outputs, better plans, and ultimately a better experience for you.

So how can anybody take the next step? We’ve covered a lot today, and we’ve talked a lot about what it does, where it falls short, what it does well, everything like that. We’ve talked about horses who could read minds and do math. We’ve talked about lawyers and pilots. Every single one of those stories that we really tried to hit home today has kind of that same lesson. Tools are really powerful, but judgment is, at the end of the day, what gets you home safely, oftentimes that human element.

So if anything today hit home, we would love to talk to you and learn more all about your story, your history, where you are, where you’re trying to go, and see how we can help along the way. So we would love to schedule a complimentary conversation with one of our advisors with Savant. No cost, no obligation. We’ll be ready when you guys are. All you need to do is follow the link in that chat box that we just put in there below at the bottom of your screen to schedule a time whenever you’re ready to go. So with that, I think we have a little bit of time left, Chris, for answering a few questions. You want to see and go through and see what we’ve got and fire some off here?

I see one, Evan, that I think would be a good one to address, so I’ll answer that. So the question is, how do I go about analyzing a year’s worth of bank and credit card statements to analyze how my money is being spent? Does the bank and credit card company have the tools to do this, or do I need to download statements and let a single AI source crunch the numbers? Where do I start?

I think that’s a really great question. And the reason that I think it’s a great question is because, yes, banks, credit unions, and other financial providers, they are joining this AI explosion here. So it very well may be the case that your bank does have those abilities to use an internal AI within the bank. But we’re not fully there yet, so I don’t think that that is the most common way that banks provide that.

So what my recommendation would be is whatever AI tool that you decide to use personally, yes, you would actually download your statements, and then you can upload them directly into the chat, and then you can start to ask your questions. So it’s usually very easy just drag and drop into the chat that you’re at, and then it will look them all over and do everything that we talked about, understand the trends, crunch the numbers, and all of those types of things. So yeah, it’s basically as easy as downloading them, dragging them in, and beginning to ask those questions that we talked about.

Yeah, I love that. So here’s another one kind of piggybacking off of that. Very common one. I think we’ve seen a lot, and probably a question everybody’s asking after seeing headlines, which AI should I be using today? I think this is really tough because we probably see, either on social media or on the news or wherever, “Oh, hey, this AI model is now the best one.” It probably changes every other week from what we’ve seen. Or, “Oh, here’s the new capabilities.” That stuff is changing constantly.

So this question is a little bit like asking which car you should buy at the end of the day. All of the models out there, they’re going to get you to the grocery store. But it’s not really about the specific tool, it’s more about how you drive it. You want to be able to make sure that the user, no matter what tool you are using, that the user is effective in how they’re using it, what they’re asking, the context they’re giving, what they’re asking for pushback, protecting their information, that’s really what matters at the end of the day.

And I think, Chris, one of the themes that at least I heard throughout the day was it can be a really powerful tool, not necessarily for… We want an expert in the chair for making those big decisions and helping us navigate financial plans and complex topics like that. But I think where a lot of people might fall short, or maybe not realize how they can use it effectively, is turning around on themselves and using it to better understand where they are, what their pain points are, what they’re trying to figure out.

It can be a really great interviewer at the end of the day and really help you ask those personal questions so that when you are ready to talk with someone or make a big financial decision, you know where you’re coming from and why. I always go back to some of the things we ask in our discovery meetings and the things that we ask people is what is really important to you about money? What was even your first memory of money? Those are the kind of questions we ask. So I think people maybe giving a shot using it, and like I said, kind of turning around on themselves to figure out more about who they are and where they’re trying to go is a really great start. And I think a lot of the tools out there are capable of doing that effectively.

Yeah, that’s excellent. Another great question here is is AI a good tool for doing the math, not necessarily interpreting, but crunching the numbers? From our experience, that has been one of the largest benefits to saving our time and letting us continue to have that conversation about what’s important with clients. So I would say the answer is, yes, you can upload, like I said, upload your statements and start to ask questions about trends and spending. Or if you have another AI tool that you’re using, give it some of your goals and objectives and help it guide you in determining if an idea can work over the long term.

My experience is that, yes, it is very good at doing that. And not only do you get generally accurate answers when doing the math, but again, it frees you up from having to crunch those numbers yourself on paper by hand with a calculator and lets you speak with that advisor about the underlying importance and values that you and your family have.

Yeah, that’s a good one. I think this is another really good one, and I think a very common theme that we see a lot. Will AI eventually replace financial advisors? I think we see this a lot in the headlines. You hear all about people being worried about what’s getting replaced and different industries being impacted.
I think let’s go back to really my story about the autopilot I think hits this home. I don’t think this is ever going to be a thing. I think the future looks more like an amazing integration between AI tools and advisors and experts. Like the autopilot, it’s been around for 100 years, pilots are still there helping out and sitting behind the seats. That’s I think really what the future looks like.

And I think what will change is going to be the advisor’s world and what they’re able to do for clients, and obviously what the experience is going to look like for the person at the end of the day. Like Chris talked about, I think the world we’re going into means more detailed planning, better analysis and recommendations, faster judgment and reaction time, and being able to react to different things in the market or changes in your life. As we know life can throw drastic changes at us in the blink of an eye. I think that’s really where things are going. So no, I don’t think anybody’s getting replaced, but I’m genuinely excited about what the world of financial planning and wealth management looks like in the future with the incorporation of these tools.
Excellent. I see one more that I want to answer here because I think it comes with a little bit of caution as well. So the question is simple, what specific AI tools do you use? I think we want to back up and think about are the tools of today going to be the tools of tomorrow? This industry is advancing extremely fast. There are new breakthroughs, there are new models, there are new tools that show up all the time.

And so I don’t think that it would necessarily be a great decision to lock in any one recommendation. There’s a lot of really great providers out there. And I think that using a couple of them, you will find that there are different outputs as well. They have a different feel, they answer questions differently, they maybe think about things differently. And so you may not get the exact same outputs by asking the same questions into different AI tools.

And so number one, I think that’s a good thing to help you not get locked into any one way of thinking. But number two, let’s also be careful because what we think is good today may not necessarily be good in six months or a year from now. And so let’s keep an open mind about potentially using different tools, testing out many different providers, and making sure that we understand how those things work in the form of those details that it does give you from an output perspective.

Yeah. Well, that’s great. Well, I want to go ahead and say, I think that’s all the time that we have for questions today. I want to just go ahead and say to everybody on the webinar today, thank you so much for taking some time and spending an hour with us. Hope you guys found the conversation helpful. Like we said, this is a really big topic, and there’s a lot to uncover with it.

So one more time, if anything that we talked about today hits home or sparks some curiosity, we would love to talk to you, like we said, learn more about your situation and see how we can help. So feel free to schedule a complimentary call, again by clicking that link below in the chat. Feel free to have those AI conversations and bring some goals and good questions with you whenever you sign up. If you’re interested in finding out a little bit more about what we do, how we operate, and what our world is, feel free to check us out at savantwealth.com. Hope everybody has a good rest of the day and we hope to see you next time. Thanks.

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