The AI Chatbots Are Coming for Wealth Management

The AI agents are here.

For years, the name of the game for AI in wealth management has centered on efficiency: capturing client data, drafting emails, summarizing meetings, and organizing files. But that’s starting to shift. Wealthtech firms are now pushing artificial intelligence beyond administrative support and into decision-making assistance, using client data to generate insights and map out potential financial paths.

Citi and Savvy Wealth both recently announced AI-driven tools aimed at guiding advisors and clients. While the technology is evolving quickly, the underlying reality hasn’t changed: Advisors who effectively integrate these tools into their workflow will have a significant advantage. “An expert with a tool can build a work of art,” said Jason Pereira, a CFP with Woodgate Financial. “An amateur with that same tool can build maybe something of value, or maybe something that falls apart.”

Reach for the Sky

Citi’s Sky is a client-facing assistant that summarizes financial data and answers basic planning or market-related questions. It includes an AI avatar (a somewhat uncanny woman in business attire with a bob haircut) functioning essentially as a chatbot with an optional visual layer. The system is intentionally limited, said Joe Bonanno, Citi’s head of wealth intelligence. “When questions involve nuanced trade‑offs, major financial changes or require tailored recommendations, Citi Sky is designed to elevate those moments by encouraging deeper engagement with a financial advisor,” he told Advisor Upside. 

One of the clearest use cases for Sky is managing client anxiety:

• Advisors often spend large portions of volatile market days responding to worried clients, even when the appropriate advice is simply to stay the course. 
• Tools like Sky could absorb some of that volume.

“A 70-year-old panicking about portfolio volatility won’t find calm just because an avatar sounds friendly,” Will Trout, director of securities and investments at Datos Insights. “But they might be willing to ask a question they’d normally hesitate to ask their advisor, and they might ask it at midnight when the advisor isn’t available.” 

Let Your Garden Grow. On the advisor end, Savvy Wealth’s Savvy Intelligence aggregates client data and allows advisors to run what-if scenarios, like, “What happens if my clients retire at 62 instead of 65 and start Roth conversions now?” or “Show me the tax impact of selling concentrated positions this year vs. spreading it over three years.” Wealth managers are meant to treat Savvy Intelligence like a team of analysts who already know your client, said Ritik Malhotra, company founder. “The advisor is driving the scenario, applies their judgment and decides what goes to the client. The AI handles the technical modeling and assembly underneath,” he told Advisor Upside.

Still, adoption remains the key variable. Trout noted that these systems only deliver value if advisors trust them and integrate them naturally into their workflow. “If [the system] feels bolted-on or unreliable, it dies on the vine,” he told Advisor Upside. “But if it becomes second nature, it compounds advisor power and shifts what advisors can accomplish in each client meeting.”