There’s a divide in the AI financial advice world, and it’s not between Claude and ChatGPT users.

Former PayPal CEO and Evergreen Wealth founder Bill Harris has launched a new direct-to-consumer venture that aims to bring AI financial advice to the masses. The new app, Evergreen.ai, is available now in its beta version for free and uses AI to answer users’ financial questions about everything from taxes to personalized retirement plans. The move is the latest by a major industry player to make artificial intelligence a mainstay and to push the idea that the era of financial advisors — at least for clients with less complex needs — may be waning. While others argue that AI will only ever be a tool, when asked whether he sees his app as eventually replacing advisors, Harris was unequivocal: “Yes.”

“The industry, or at least people who are aggressive in terms of their use of AI within the industry, will be able to give very good financial advice, financial planning, investment management to households of, let’s say anyone with assets of up to $20 million,” Harris said. “I think that’s pretty easy, without the direct impact or the direct participation of a human advisor.”

Putting Up Guardr(AI)ls

It’s no secret that people are already turning to AI for financial advice: One recent survey found that roughly 40% of Americans had asked it for tips, with about a quarter of Gen Z using it in the past year. But usage comes with real risks — the most popular models reportedly get the facts wrong more than half the time. Evergreen.ai seeks to avoid this by citing its sources and relying on a “calculation engine” (rather than a typical large language model) to generate more math-based answers, Harris said.

But that company isn’t alone in trying to bring AI financial advice to people’s phones:

• Earlier this year, ChatGPT began allowing some clients to link their bank accounts to the platform.
• The US crypto exchange Coinbase also rolled out AI investing apps in June that even let users engage in tax-loss harvesting and multi-asset event trading.

Tool or Toolshed? Despite the growing availability of AI financial advice, skeptics doubt it can replace the personal touch. Clients will always value the reassurance that comes with having a real-life advisor to turn to, said Adrian Johnstone, CEO of the AI-based CRM Practifi.

“What [AI] can do is add efficiency to the advisor. It can add richness to the relationship,” he said. “It can do both of those things at a scale that a human advisor can’t do, but AI in and of itself doesn’t really have a memory. It can’t read the unwritten context.”

Financial planning has a lot to offer as a profession, but aiming for a rich personal life is easier said than done.

Planners help make their clients’ hopes and dreams come true. They coach people through life’s highs and lows, financial and otherwise, seeing firsthand how the creation of wealth can transform a family’s future. The pay’s not bad, either, with median compensation reaching $195,000 in 2026, according to the CFP Board.

The job can take a toll, however, as the same deep connection to clients that makes the work meaningful can also challenge work-life balance. So can the allure of winning new clients and boosting compensation to new heights. While their individual experiences differ, founders of independent registered investment advisor firms agreed on one common point: It takes as much planning and intentionality to maintain strong family relationships as it does to grow a successful RIA business.

Striking a Balance

Autumn Knutson, a former teacher and counselor who launched Styled Wealth in late 2023, is among the many founders navigating these tensions.

“Sometimes we can hyperfocus so much on the numerical outputs of our businesses that we forget what the whole point of the business is in the first place,” Knutson said. “The clearer we can be on the life we want to build toward and the person we want to be in that process, the clearer the role of work and building an RIA can be in our lives.”

Company founders should regularly “check in” on their work-life balance, she said. In her case, that happens monthly and in direct collaboration with her spouse.

“Family time needs to be scheduled and protected just like an important client meeting,” said Joon Um at Secure Tax & Accounting. “There will always be another email, deadline or problem to solve, but you don’t get that time with your family back.”

In the recent book REBL Dad, authors Adam Holt, CEO and founder at Asset-Map, and Derek Notman, founder and CEO of Couplr AI, offer a similar set of suggestions, based on more than 100 interviews with business founders, including the likes of Richard Branson and Jason Wenk.

“Being genuinely present with your family is different than merely being physically there,” Notman said. “The emphasis is on quality of attention and focus. It’s about building relationships through activities and experiences you share with your spouse and children, rather than relying primarily on conversation or formal parenting.”

Take Your Inner Child to Work. Another recommendation is letting children see and participate in the parent’s real life, including work and entrepreneurship, so they learn by observing and doing. “In other words, live the lessons rather than simply teach them,” Holt said.

A little leverage can go a long way.

ProShares formed in 2006 and quickly became a pioneer in the ETF space, launching the first US-listed leveraged and inverse funds. But the issuer — which surpassed $100 billion in assets under management last year — has steadily expanded beyond them. The firm has moved into crypto, money markets and autocallables, among other areas. Now, it is taking an even bigger step beyond the ETF wrapper.

Earlier this month, it announced that it is building out active-investment strategies focused on areas including fixed income and private markets, with plans to launch a lineup of interval funds and extend its reach to investors, both institutional and individual. “ETFs are great delivery vehicles for a lot of exposures and strategies, but not the best for others,” CEO Michael Sapir said.

Advisor Upside spoke with Sapir this week about ProShares’ longevity in the ETF industry, portfolio construction, the evolution of ETFs and why the fund structure has become synonymous with investment innovation.

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