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There’s been much talk about AI tools, and other tech, helping financial advisors serve more clients more effectively. Increasingly, there’s proof.
Carson Group advisors, for example, have boosted their book capacity by 18% in 2026 compared with 2025 without seeing a drop in client-service quality, according to CEO Burt White, thanks to a combination of internal and external technology. The development of AI agents and better data management can push capacity even higher, White believes, making him “extremely bullish” about the wealth management industry. Carson now manages almost $60 billion in assets, a figure that has tripled since White joined as a managing partner in 2022. There are also risks, however, including the temptation to embrace every new tool that hits the market. Lasting success for Carson Group and its peers will require equal parts innovation, ambition and discipline.
“We are in the middle of a paradigm shift,” White said on the sidelines of the Future Proof Citywide conference last week in Miami Beach. “We’re moving from a framework of selecting individual tools and plugging in specific apps and components to a truly unified technology footing. My personal belief is that agentic AI can completely redefine client relationship management and what is possible with personalization.”
A Brave New World
The wealth management industry has never faced such rapid change, or hotter competition, but that’s far from a bad thing, White said. Instead, these developments should further boost advisor growth, but the same forces could leave legacy technology providers that fail to evolve in a vulnerable position. “I wouldn’t want to be a platform that just stores data,” White said. “If your primary value proposition as a software provider for advisors is that you store data, you’re going to lose out.”
AI has redefined the way Carson Group views its tech stack, said Dani Fava, the firm’s chief strategy officer. Previously, technology discussions focused on buying vs. building. Was a given tool better than what the firm could create internally? Was a potential internal tool differentiated enough to justify the cost of building it? “The AI toolset we are working with now changes that whole dynamic,” Fava said at the conference in Miami Beach. “We have a deep partnership with Amazon AWS and other providers that let us create things very quickly and put them in the hands of advisors.”
AI is expected to increase productivity and service quality in the wealth management industry, according to survey research by Fidelity. The research found that among generative AI users in the industry:
- About half saw improvements in decision-making and customer experience, and four in five saw increases in efficiency.
- Among users, nearly four in five use Gen AI for writing assistance, note-taking and meeting preparation, while over half use an AI assistant or copilot.
Kick Those Tires. “We don’t have to settle anymore when we’re picking technology tools,” White added. “In the past, choosing tech was like buying a car. Maybe you liked the engine on this one but the interior on another, so you had to settle for one or the other. Building with AI completely changes that dynamic.”
