One of the more interesting positives that came out of the pandemic is the pent-up demand for attending industry conferences and events. A recent case in point: WealthStack 2023, which was widely attended and recently held at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida.
It featured three days of nonstop tech demos, sessions and networking. More than 1,500 advisors, custodians, technology companies, industry insiders and experts were all looking to better understand the state of wealth-focused technology.
By far, the top topic being discussed most was artificial intelligence (AI) and its many emerging uses in wealth management — most notably, how generative AI, spurred on by the monumental popularity of ChatGPT, will fundamentally alter how advisors will deliver financial advisory services.
Just about every panel discussion and presentation dedicated some time to the AI topic. The consensus is that AI, while disruptive, is unlikely to displace advisors.
Everyone on stage seemed to agree that it would be a great enabler to enhance, elevate, expand and help drive scale for advisors to solve investors' very human problems.
Plus, virtually every speaker pointed out that we've already seen this movie before, when robo-advisors entered the space a decade ago bringing low-cost algorithms and digital experiences that ultimately were adopted by us humans.
Integration Issues
Another key theme was how to unify the technology experience for both advisors and clients, particularly with the proliferation of literally hundreds of wealthtech solutions.
"The industry has been formed by every custodian and vendor wanting to be the center of the universe, which then creates a massive integration problem," said INVENT CEO, Oleg Tishkevich. "What is needed is a digital ecosystem approach that advisors control and design themselves, just like the app store on the iPhone."
Along these lines, the pendulum is swinging away from each advisor building their own tech stack with a "best in breed" component, and then trying to integrate them together. Rather, a more efficient approach is to provide a customizable, flexible platform that provides multiple capabilities under a single experience.
As Reed Colley, CEO of Summit Wealth Systems, explained, "There are too many systems with 'tech debt,' meaning that legacy platforms aren't designed to solve today's problems. Instead, we need to humanize the approach, letting the technology enable better conversations versus the technology becoming the conversation."
As part of the showcasing of all that's new in wealthtech, WealthStack provided a rapid-fire set of innovation demos from emerging technology companies, with each firm having just five minutes to make their pitch and provide a compelling case for its use.
