Merrill’s latest AI technology wants to crash your next client meeting.

The Wall Street bank, along with Bank of America Private Bank, announced the rollout of Meeting Journey this week, an AI-powered tool designed to automate client meetings, handling everything from gathering recent client activity and insights beforehand, to following up with notes and next best actions afterward. The technology can save advisors as much as four hours per meeting, according to a release, which sounds like a lot. If the promised efficiencies hold up, however, tools like this could fundamentally reshape how advisors allocate the hours in their day. Basically, AI handles the paperwork, advisors handle the people.

“This is time our teams are reinvesting into client engagement,” said Shimna Sameer of BofA Private Bank.

Life’s All About the Journey

During virtual client calls, the new Merrill tool acts as an AI notetaker, capturing highlights and sharing summaries. Afterward, it generates follow-ups, action items and documentation based on the conversation. BofA said it invests roughly $13.5 billion annually in technology, with $4 billion earmarked for new initiatives like AI. “[Merrill] is utilizing note takers as an information capture to then power downstream workflows — or at least that’s the goal,” said Jason Pereira, a CFP and financial planner at Woodgate Financial, adding that it’s “impossible to summarize” how much time AI tools are saving advisors at his own firm. “The efficiency gains that I managed to eke out have definitely led to more time related to content and other client-facing activities that will continue to fuel growth.”

Of course, Merrill isn’t the first wirehouse to lean into AI-powered meeting tools. Rival Morgan Stanley rolled out a similar capability in June 2024 and reported record revenue and profits in its wealth management unit that October, which executives directly attributed to the new tool. (Although, that one only freed up half an hour per client meeting, psshh.) According to a recent Fidelity survey, the industry is quickly adopting artificial intelligence:

• More than two-thirds are already using Gen AI, and the vast majority reported tangible time savings.
• Among users, nearly 4 in 5 use it for writing assistance, note-taking and meeting preparation. Over half of respondents said they use an AI assistant or copilot.

“[AI] hasn’t led to a direct or immediate increase in revenue or assets, but we’re seeing a boost in productivity that will have downstream effects,” said Jacob Tally, a financial planner at Prospero Wealth. His firm uses an AI content manager that helped increase organic traffic by 50% this quarter, while saving thousands of dollars on website managers. “We’re confident these gains will help us grow revenue and assets over time.”

Oh, the Humanity. Like many of its competitors, Merrill emphasized human connections, and that advisors will remain central to the relationship. “Meeting Journey represents a meaningful advancement in how the wealth management industry uses AI,” said Patricio Diaz, chief operating officer at Merrill. If nothing else, it’s fewer hours writing up meeting notes, which in an industry built on compounding, seems like a great return on investment.

To make a taller ladder, add some rungs.

Vanguard officially entered the bond-ladder ETF fray this morning, with the launch of its BondBuilder funds. The company, which has not previously offered a line of target-maturity ETFs, now has low-fee corporate bond varieties ranging from maturities of 2027 to 2036. Not to be outdone, Invesco also has a forthcoming expansion of its BulletShares ETF line, adding bond coverage to include Treasurys. It’s also tacking on a 2036 corporate bond ETF and 2034 high yield corporate bond ETF to its product roster. The launches come as a number of competitors have branched out in the bond-ladder ETF market, offering more strategies to help advisors give clients a predictable income stream.

“It’s democratized low-cost access to the over-the-counter bond market and opened up a world of use cases that only the ultra wealthy would have had at their disposal prior to the advent of this technology,” Invesco’s head of fixed income ETF strategy Jason Bloom said.

Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Invesco’s BulletShares line currently includes 28 ETFs across investment-grade corporate debt, high yield corporate and municipal bonds, with maturities ranging from 2026 to 2035. The Treasury bond ETFs will add another category to the mix, with maturities for the products ranging from 2027 to 2031. The company filed for the funds last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Demand for ETFs for bond laddering has been climbing as more investors look for simple, low‑cost tools to build bond ladders to generate income without managing individual securities,” said Cindy Zarker, relationship manager at Fuse Research Network. “Invesco’s effort to extend its BulletShares lineup into Treasury ETFs will broaden the suite beyond corporates and munis, giving investors a lower‑risk laddering option alongside its existing offerings and directly challenging iShares, the only provider currently offering defined‑maturity Treasury ETFs.”

Other asset managers have bolstered their bond-ladder ETF lines over the past year:

• State Street recently added more high-yield products to its MyIncome line.
• BlackRock filed late last year for 10 new iBonds ETFs across munis, corporates, Treasurys and high-yield.

Supporting the Ladder. Target-maturity bond ETFs are useful for financial advisors using model portfolios and using block trades for large allocations that are then suballocated to client accounts, Bloom said. That’s difficult in the corporate and Treasury categories, for example, as a theoretical $100,000 bond ladder portfolio with 20 to 40 bond holdings would incur trading costs making it prohibitively expensive, especially in a low-rate environment, he noted. “It’s providing scalable low-cost access,” he said. “When you reduce all those frictional costs, you’re increasing the returns for the investors.”

It’s natural to look away from things that worry us, but ignoring problems just makes them worse.

That’s certainly the case for health care expenses in retirement. Out-of-pocket costs for an American couple who retired at age 65 in 2025 will average $345,000, up nearly 41% from the $245,000 estimate in 2015, according to Fidelity data. It’s a scary statistic for clients to hear, said Andrew Crowell, vice chairman of wealth management for D.A. Davidson & Co., and it’s causing many to stick their heads in the sand. Financial advisors need to dig them out, Crowell said, by reframing the conversion around proactive planning.

“It can be hard to cut through all the noise and get to these kinds of topics when your clients are probably more interested in talking about market volatility from the situation in the Middle East,” Crowell, whose firm recently commissioned a survey on the topic, told Advisor Upside. “It’s vital that we do so, however. Healthcare is one of the most significant and yet still underestimated expenses that most retirees will face.”

New Survey Findings

Nearly eight in 10 (78%) Americans say they are concerned about the impact of rising healthcare costs on their retirement satisfaction, per the D.A. Davidson’s survey. The rest of the results are just as telling:

• Fewer than half (48%) of respondents have factored these increasing costs into retirement planning.
• Just 16% say they feel very knowledgeable about expected healthcare costs in retirement.

“Healthcare inflation typically runs at least twice the rate of overall inflation,” Crowell observed. “Frankly, people are in denial about this, even though about six in 10 say they’ve already witnessed someone in their life struggle with healthcare costs in retirement. They just think it’s something they’ll deal with later, when the reality is that they need to be planning for it right now.”

Taking Action. Though admittedly expensive, attaining some degree of long-term care coverage makes sense for affluent clients who expect to rely on a combination of Medicare and private insurance in retirement. “The key is threading the needle and getting coverage at a good rate while you’re still insurable, while not starting to pay premiums too early,” Crowell said. “We had one client couple recently who had decided to wait until their late 60s to seek out coverage, and they couldn’t get any. It’s a conversation for your 50s and early 60s, not your late 60s or 70s.”

Other strategies include long-term investing in health savings accounts, cutting back on discretionary spending to direct more money into 401(k)s, pursuing preventative care and embracing healthy lifestyle choices. Discussing care plans with family is also crucial.

“There’s no silver bullet for solving the retiree health care question, but the good news is that we have a lot of tools at our disposal,” Crowell said. “Being prepared for rising healthcare costs is important, but being informed is the first, most crucial, step.”