January 2, 2023, 10:15am – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to play a central role in the future of financial services, and advisors are already recognising the potential this tech has to offer – a resounding 98% believe AI will impact the future of financial advice.

So, which areas of wealth management will AI revolutionise moving forwards? And how is the sector already underutilising its capabilities?

Managing information with AI and meta-data
Ville Somppi, Vice President of Industry Solutions at M-Files: “Metadata can help find information easily by enriching the search criteria. Not only is the system looking for a specific keyword, but it knows to limit searches to defined categories, such as project names or specific users.

“Typically, this metadata is added manually, but AI can help automatically classify data to simplify future searches. For example, AI can determine that a document is a non-disclosure agreement for a designated project and customer, and file it according to this information.

“Developers will place added emphasis on understanding user intent to deliver relevant search results, even if the criteria provided is unclear. Once this tech is implemented, AI will boost search capabilities for financial service providers by pinpointing the snippet of text staff are looking for, instead of leaving them to comb through an entire document to access what they need.”

Meeting the compliance burden
Somppi: “Thanks to AI, financial service providers can automatically classify information and then apply pre-defined compliance rules. For example, if a document is an agreement that needs to be signed, contains PII-data (personally identifiable information) that needs to be protected with GDPR compliant rules or is part of a specific client project, the access rights can automatically be set according to client confidentiality policy.

“Furthermore, firms that innovate information management processes will benefit from electronic audit trails, where all information can be protected according to the rules of the business. Therefore, when a financial provider is audited, they can very simply show who has viewed or modified a piece of information, prove that all users have read and accepted the latest standard operating procedure and demonstrate that only certain users have the authority to approve commercial transactions exceeding a certain threshold.”

Surfacing content recommendations
Somppi: “AI has already infiltrated our daily lives through content recommendations seen in internet searches, social media browsing, online shopping and entertainment streaming. The same technologies are emerging in the business world, providing the information people need, before they even look for it.

“Through AI, financial advisors can autopoulate homescreens based on the client meetings in their calendar. As a result, there is no need to manually dig-out clientbooks, correspondence or investment recommendations that match the risk profile of each client – AI will automatically supply all the relevant information.”

Knowledge management
Cashing in on knowledge management capabilities will help wealth managers produce, present and scale their offerings.

Somppi: “Analysing how historic assets were built and the market conditions that impacted their performance is a good starting point in the creation of new offerings.”

“Part of a financial asset’s success is the way wealth managers are able to present it. As such, knowledge workers are codifying past successes into a template that captures all necessary product information, and better resonates with the target audience.

“Financial service providers are also building scalability through two methods: showcasing products that perform well, and leveraging scalable sales machinery that finds new clients and money to invest. Document management platforms act as the central hub of information, boosting the ability to develop these areas.”