Artificial intelligence is taking over more of the work financial advisors once did themselves. But instead of making advisors obsolete, it may be making their human skills more valuable.
Nearly six in 10 wealth firms are already using AI to deepen client analysis, while firms increasingly deploy the technology to summarize complex documents, personalize client communications and analyze customer feedback, according to new research from the London Stock Exchange Group (also known as LSEG).
The shift is moving advisors away from gathering information and toward interpreting it, with AI increasingly embedded directly into advisor workflows and investment decision-making.
“The future of the advisor is not being automated away—it is being redefined,” LSEG said.
The findings come as wealth management firms race to determine how far AI can be pushed into a business built largely on personal relationships and trust.
LSEG found AI is increasingly handling work that once consumed hours of an advisor’s day, including searching research, pulling together portfolio information and preparing for client meetings.
Generative AI tools can now search large repositories of internal firm data using natural language, identify relevant information and summarize complex material in seconds.
That changes where advisors add value, LSEG said.
“In this model, the value of the advisor lies less in access to information and more in the ability to translate that information into meaningful action,” the report said.
AI adoption is already moving well beyond experimentation.
Among wealth firms surveyed, 57% are using AI to analyze client feedback from surveys, emails and CRM notes. Another 56% use it to create personalized client communications, 54% use it to read and summarize complex documents, and 51% use AI to identify client segments based on preferences, lifestyles and other characteristics.
Automation is also increasingly handling meeting summaries, CRM updates, compliance fields and first drafts of client communications.
For advisors, that could mean fewer hours spent on administrative work and more time talking to clients, providing portfolio guidance and building relationships.
It could also increase the value of skills AI has a harder time replicating.
LSEG said empathy, active listening and the ability to explain complicated trade-offs could become more important talents for advisors as machines assume more analytical and administrative work. So could an advisor’s judgment about when a nervous client needs reassurance—and when that client needs to be challenged.
“AI is elevating the advisor’s role rather than diminishing it,” LSEG said.
The transformation is also raising the bar for client service.
As AI gives firms the ability to analyze more client information and deliver increasingly customized products, investors may come to expect more proactive and personalized advice. Nearly half of firms are already creating highly customized products, according to LSEG.
And the technology is about to move into another phase.
Over the next three years, wealth firms expect to expand their use of different types of AI, including multimodal systems (which understand information from different types of media, including photos) and agentic systems, which are designed not simply to generate information but to independently execute multistep tasks that would usually require people.
That could push AI further into the day-to-day operation of wealth management firms and eliminate more routine work.
Division Of Labor
But LSEG sees a division of labor emerging rather than the disappearance of the advisor.
AI handles information and process. Advisors provide context, judgment and human connection.
“AI is shifting the role of the advisor from managing information to delivering insight, and from executing processes to shaping outcomes,” LSEG said.
For advisors worried that AI could eventually take their jobs, the research offers a different possibility: The technology may take over more of their work while making the parts clients need humans to do increasingly important.