By Weld Royal

Artificial intelligence is changing wealth management as it vastly reduces the time required to analyze market data, rebalance portfolios, communicate with clients, and generate leads, to name a few areas where the technology is making an impact. Eric Sontag, COO and president of Wealthspire, has made it his mission to figure out how generative AI is going to shape the future of the independent advisory firm he helps lead. Today Wealthspire has about $30 billion in assets under management and approximately 385 professionals.

On our latest The Way Forward: Next Generation podcast , Sontag, whose father founded the predecessor to Wealthspire in 1995, discusses how AI can help new advisors learn important lessons, and why advisors are important to its future use at Wealthspire. To prepare for the podcast, Sontag says he "went to ChatGPT," adding that "It was a little scary how good my robot interviewer was." He used the voice capability of the chatbot to conduct his practice interview, and says advisors can apply gen AI in a similar way to critique their own performance on client calls. "Did you talk too much? Were there certain filler words that you said too frequently?," he says.

Involving advisors. Sontag says some advisors have pushed back against the use of AI, concerned about the potential for the technology to make mistakes. Others are passionate. "Some advisors have said that on a busy day of client meetings, their use of AI has saved them up to an hour," observes Sontag.

The advisor's role in AI changes. Many firms use AI to listen in on client conversations, analyze sentiment, come up with answers to situation-specific questions, and identify market patterns. But how does a wealth management leader stay abreast of a technology evolving as fast as AI? One way Sontag monitors developments is a forum the firm calls AI Innovation. Sontag created the group, at first as a Teams chat, with about 10 advisors who are particularly engaged in AI. He says the group helps him understand developments, consider guidelines, and new use cases. It may also persuade hesitant wealth managers to try new tools. "I'm not an advisor, and I want to hear from the advisors that are using it," says Sontag.

The chat group is being formalized into an AI Innovation committee, explains Sontag. Its ideas are also helping to shape the agenda for Wealthspire's advisor summit later this year. "I'm leading a panel on AI, with an advisor, a member of our investment team, our chief compliance officer as well, because of course that has to be part of this," he says.

Rising advisors and the art of persuasion. Firms have long relied on note taking in client meetings as a way to train junior advisors. Sontag believes forcing the trainee to take notes can deprive the person of the chance to focus on more important skills, such as how to raise sensitive topics. "It's not rocket science to run a financial plan and figure out that a client needs to sell their house," he says. "We have people straight out of school who can successfully run that plan. But delivering that successfully to a client in a way that they actually heed your advice, listen, how you work them through it, I mean, that's an art form."

Now that AI, with client consent, can take meeting notes and generate a summary, an aspect of the junior advisor's role is gone. Sontag believes the change gives new employees a chance to learn critical soft skills, such as careful listening and persuasion. "You can't overestimate the importance of the EQ and interpersonal side of being an advisor and the art of being an advisor," he says.

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 25, 2025 10:58 ET (14:58 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.