Shaun Tucker: Hello, and welcome to our PracticeLab podcast, where we talk with advisors about what makes them successful so that you can apply those lessons in your business. I’m Shaun Tucker, the Director of Practice Management here at Capital Group.
Imagine you’re a financial advisor with decades of experience, you get interested in AI, and then you develop such an expertise in it that you start an AI fintech of your own. So you’re on both sides of the table, advisor and AI.
If you understood the technology that deeply, how would that impact the way you use AI in your practice?
Derek Notman is an advisor with 20 years of experience and the founder of Intrepid Wealth Partners. And he’s also the founder of Couplr AI, that’s spelled C-O-U-P-L-R, which is a fintech that uses AI and data science to match prospective clients with compatible advisors.
Derek recently spoke with my colleague Winston Chang about what advisors like you really need to know about AI. Pay close attention to how Derek’s experience with artificial intelligence has actually made him double down on the importance of real human connections. Let’s dive in.
Winston Chang: Hey Derek. Thanks so much for joining us here on the PracticeLab podcast. Uh, thanks for taking the time. For those of our audience members who don't know you, could you just give us a quick introduction to yourself?
You have an interesting background as both an advisor and an AI fintech founder. Love to have you tell us a little bit about that journey.
Derek Notman: Hey, Winston, thanks a ton for having me. Uh, really happy to be here and looking forward to our fun chat. I don't know how interesting my background is, but I've been in the space for about 20 years.
Cut my teeth at New York Life. Was a top producer there for a long time, and, uh, about the same time that the AI tech bug bit me. I also ended up leaving New York Life on great terms, but left and started my own RIA, which I still own and operate today. I'm a CFP. I don't take on new clients anymore.
I do manage my existing ones and. Small firm with another advisor and some support staff. But my role full-time now is working on my technology solution, which I'm sure we'll get into here, but yeah, I've been in the space for a while.
Winston: Yeah. Hey, thanks Derek.
You mentioned your software solution. Tell us a little bit about Couplr.
Derek: Couplr is something that is a brainchild that came to me working as an advisor.
Think of it as like the eHarmony for insurance and wealth management. We are helping connect clients, people looking for help with their money, with the right advisor for them. And in doing so, now we have warm inbound leads for advisors who are looking to grow.
Winston: Yeah, that's great. Derek, you brand yourself as Couplr AI. Where does the AI come into that matchmaking?
Derek: So a couple ways, like AI can be used in a lot of ways, which is really cool. But a big thing is, is that. What's interesting, and so like I, I, again, I refer to eHarmony or match.com or Bumble or Tinder.
So they really did a nice job of figuring out what makes a good relationship, like what makes a good match. However, that's never really been done in insurance and wealth management. And so what we believe is like, let's use technology, AI, to understand through large language models and so forth.
What does success look like? What does a good client advisor relationship look like? Why is it successful? What factors determine a good match? What factors determine a faster introduction to closing business scenario? And so we're able to take all the data that we're starting to get using Couplr and the matching we're making.
To learn and understand and then apply AI to speed that whole process up. So matches are better, they're more on point, they happen faster, and so forth.
Winston: Perfect. Thank you Derek. What I love about your background is that it gives you a unique perspective on both sides of the table, so to speak.
So you've been an advisor for a long time. You know what hurts in your practice and, you've also had a few years now as an AI founder. So you've got a unique perspective and under the hood, look at that technology and how it works. So. I think you can help us a lot understand how to translate between the two parties, right?
Advisors and AI. Let's start with the advisors and then we'll go to the AI later in this conversation. I wanna start pretty broad, Derek. What's the most common mistake or biggest misperception that you see out there among advisors when it comes to AI?
Derek: I think there's trepidation. They're a little bit afraid to use it.
Some are, obviously you have early adopters, but I think there's some trepidation like, Hey, is AI gonna replace me? You know, some of us listening to this might recall the robo-advisor craze of, you know, 10, 12 years ago, oh, all advisors are gonna be replaced by robo-advisors. Never happened.
You know, Skynet’s not taking over. AI's not taking over. But I think the thing that advisors really should be aware of is that if I don't add AI as a tool to my tool belt, my tool bucket, whatever. Now I am gonna put myself at a disadvantage to all those that are using it. There's a reason we started using email instead of snail mail, you know, and phones.
And we don't use fax machines anymore. So this is just another tool at our disposal. But because it's so technologically advanced, I think there's some trepidation, some worry. I'm like, and let's face it, compliance like, can I use this thing? 'Cause it's moving so fast now that people aren't quite under sure.
Like what does this mean and how does it work? And what are the impacts of using it and so forth.
Winston: That's helpful. Thank you Derek. So for those who are in the audience and are like, yeah, I gotta learn how to use this thing. A lot of them are working at firms where they kind of inherit their tech stack, right?
Mm-hmm. They're just handed a proprietary in-house, little more than like a ChatGPT wrapper, a conversational AI tool or chat bot that they can use to mine through or go through their data, prepare for client meetings, things like that. But it's pretty much just a chat bot.
Any advice for how those advisors who are listening to this make the most of those tools, if that's the position that they're in?
Derek: And I was in that position when I was at New York Life for a long time, so dealing with a massive field force nationally, there are constraints that the mothership can only do so much for them.
I mean, I would learn it as quickly as possible. Whatever they do give you, go use it. What I have found is that most of these larger organizations, they do want feedback from the field. So if you're an early adopter and start using it and like, okay, this is great, but here are the limitations, here's what I'd really like to do.
Now you can start reporting that back to home office. And I know it'll never happen quickly, but it's gotta start somewhere. And for the chat bot, like maybe your company's got like a version of ChatGPT that you can use internally. Start learning how to prompt. For those who don't know what a prompt is like, and I had to learn this.
It's real simple. What type of questions should you be asking ChatGPT, because the questions matter. And learning how to have that, it's almost like a conversation, like a dialogue. So being really aware of that and practicing that so you can get the most out of it, that's where I would start.
It's something, it's not ideal maybe, but it's something.
Winston: Yeah. In fact, earlier this week I was reading this, interesting piece from Fast Company about how AI has eaten its own. The title Prompt Engineer doesn't mean anything anymore because it's table stakes. Most companies just view that as an essential skill.
Like no one asks you if you know how to use the Microsoft Suite anymore, you know, if you know how to use Excel or Office. You just have to, it's assumed. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So I'm glad you said that about prompt engineering specifically. Okay. Let's talk to the advisors who maybe they're independent, they have a little more freedom when it comes to selecting AI tools.
Or maybe let's talk to like the back office, the ops teams or even home office decision-makers. In other words, let's talk to the audience who has some decision-making power when it comes to what AI tools they use or don't use. What are the big questions? Maybe let's come up with a list like five things that they should be considering.
Five biggest considerations when you're exploring or diligencing AI vendors.
Derek: I've got some real thoughts on this and so we'll come at this like as a perspective as if I'm an advisor or a firm that's going to use this with my advisors. Let's start there.
First off, like higher level, be open to this tool. It's not going away. And in fact, even though we've gotten a, a lot of press the last couple of years, AI has been around since the fifties. It's been around a long time. Not in its current form, but the idea of it, and it's actually working.
It's been around a long time and so it's not like it's new, but it's new to our industry, newer. Get the people that are forward thinking in your company, whether you're two people or 2,000, and start playing with this stuff and understanding it so you can understand how you might be able to apply it to your company.
So I just want to caveat all this by saying that 'cause it, it is important and think about those that would've heard about this thing called the phone or email, but decided not to use it like they'd be at a distinct disadvantage, right? So I think the first thing I would want to consider, you know, if we're trying to come up with like a list of five, let's say, would be, does the AI, does the tech you're looking at incorporating, does it deepen or dilute relationships?
So like, in other words, does this actually help you connect with clients better? Or does it simply turn them into like another transaction? Human beings, consumers, are wired to connect with other human beings. They're looking for hyper-personalization. They're looking for digitally enhanced. So does the AI tool you're looking at, does it help you build a deeper human relationship or does it actually put like a wedge between the two of you?
Like are you having real better conversations, deeper conversations, or not? So that's the first thing I think I would say there.
Uh, so another thing like, so advisors, their primary job, right, is to meet with clients. That's our job. So if you're gonna incorporate an AI tool, I would ask then does it create or kill busy work? Is it helping you streamline things, whether it's like scheduling or back office or filing in your CRM, all of that stuff.
Because ultimately what it should do is it should free up all the busy work that has to happen behind the scenes so you can spend more time in front of your actual clients. That's deepening human relationships again. So does it actually create work or does it actually kill the busy work? And I mentioned this just a little bit ago, but here's the next one is, is the tool you're looking at ...
Does it just do cookie cutter stuff or is it creating hyper-personalization for you? This is really, really important because the consumer, and there's reports out there, you should go all, go Google this. In 2024, the World Economic Forum published a report called The Future of Financial Advice. Talks all about this, free report.
You can all go Google it and download it. Brilliant information. But we wanna have personalization and it really is possible and we can use AI to do that. So is the tool helping you tell your story as an advisor and connecting with you the right type of people to have the right types of conversations?
Or is it making you like one of the others? Um, I think something else that really has to be important is like, can you explain it to a regulator or your compliance officer? Is it compliant? Is it being used correctly? We don't wanna replace, like I talk about back office stuff, like we don't wanna start using AI to do the financial plan.
You're the professional, you have the credentials, the experience, the empathy. So here's something to keep in mind. AI will never have empathy. It can't. It can understand what empathy is, but it actually can't empathize with another human being. So is it transparent? Is it compliant?
Is it helping create trustworthiness in your practice or not? And regardless of what situation you find yourself in large firm captive, not captive, whatever. Is this something you could easily explain to a regulator and pass the sniff test, if you will. Right? Yeah. And how you're using it too.
I think that's important. And then ultimately, I think number five would be the tech needs to feel like you. It needs to fit your voice, your mission, your brand, your ideal client, all of those things. 'Cause if it doesn't feel like you and you're not comfortable with it, everyone else is gonna be able to tell, right?
And then it's just gonna cause friction points in the entire marketing and sales process. So you wanna make sure that the tools reflect your overall ethos as an advisor on how you're working with people. Does that make sense?
Winston: Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you, Derek. I wanna dive a little deeper on a couple of the things that you said.
Starting with the thing that you just said, it needs to feel like you, it's related to a point that you made earlier. Does it do cookie cutter stuff or does it create hyper personalization? That's a big concern, right? Especially with AI generated content. Hey, if I write every single one of my newsletters, if I go to a workshop about how is an advisor to create newsletters and 200 other advisors were there, then you have 200 advisors producing the same newsletter is kind of the concern that's out there when it comes to AI generated content for advisors.
How do you address that? How do people like find that right usage of AI to help them? Personalize their content, scale their content as in deliver it to more people, but still keep their voice, put the rubber to the road a little bit there.
Derek: Great question. So this goes back further as far as development for the advisor, the advisor should first figure out who is my ideal client?
What's that persona? What's our brand? What's our mission, what's our vision? You have to crystallize those things first. And then you can start to embed that into, like combining that with AI and your own voice. So here's an example. My firm, we do a monthly newsletter to all of our clients. I contribute to half of it, and then the other advisor contributes to half of it.
So it's both of our perspectives. And so we write the whole thing out by ourselves. It's our voice, it's our thoughts, but then you can use AI to clean it up. So now, if you write the correct prompt, and I mean, heck, even Gmail has this baked in with Gemini now, but you can do this in ChatGPT too.
It is like, here's what I wanna say, here's what I've said. Can you maybe clean this up? Make it a little bit more concise, you know, uh, shorten it a little bit. So this is a way where you can use AI to help kind of like make something that you got maybe 70 or 80% of the way there, but better. And we've probably heard this, but put good in, get good out.
The AI output you get no matter what you're doing is only be as good as the input you give it, right? And if you don't give it any good input, like bad prompts, bad information, well how's it gonna know what to do? And it's just gonna start making stuff up. So you have to fact check these things. So as an advisor, figure out your voice.
If you're gonna be sitting in the room with 200 other advisors, that's fine. You're learning like it's a start. But now customize. You can use AI to speed this up and do some of the research for you, but at the end of the day, it still needs to be your voice. Like for those of us using email or the telephone or a car, like it's still us.
It's just making the job a little bit easier. Right, right.
Winston: Yeah. And then one of the first things that you said was, does it deepen or dilute relationships, which I think is great framing. That's a great question for us to ask ourselves. You know, one of the concerns with, I'm sure you're using note takers, right?
At your, at your firm. And a lot of people are, Michael Kitces was just doing a study on this a couple of months ago and one of the questions that he, and that others are asking is, well, how do I use a note taker, which takes the job that I might have delegated to like an associate, like a junior advisor?
But still help them develop those essential relationship building skills, like listening to a client, really paying attention to what they need, their sentiment, you know, writing down the things that are important, translating that into a list of action items, sending a follow up email, you know, like all the things that an AI note taker now does for you.
So there's that like tension there when it comes to skills development is like, yeah, on its face an AI note taker absolutely deepens that relationship because it ensures that you don't forget anything that was really important and it gives you a touchpoint with the client and you can do it more quickly.
But then what about the skills part? Right? So, how do you think about the weakening of muscles, I guess when it comes to delegating tasks to AI?
Derek: You know, I don't know if it's weakening of muscles or you're just using a different muscle set. You're switching the workout that you're doing.
And so notetakers are great, but you have to use the outputs from them. So one of the struggles that I had as an advisor before note takers, this is for years, is whether it was a yellow pad or I'm typing as I'm doing a virtual meeting, is anytime I'm physically writing something down, it means I'm not looking at the client and I'm not fully listening to what they're saying.
So I'm missing things, right? Whether I want to or not. The note taker captures everything. So now I get to focus entirely on the conversation. But then what do you do with it after that? Right? And I think that's where, again, you could take that. 'Cause now, and here's something I like to do too, if it's possible, if the note takers is get the whole audio transcript, like take the full thing because now it has my words and the client's words.
And now put that into ChatGPT. Hey, will you summarize? This conversation. What's most important to the client? What action items are there for me as an advisor? Tell me the top three personal things this client told me. And now you can actually go back and read that. Put into your notes, put it into your CRM.
Um, I even you go look at that, you know, that note before your next meeting with the client. Oh yeah. We talked about, you know, they just bought a new dog, or the kid just went off to college. You know, how's that going? So I think like it can actually help you be more efficient in working out the muscles, but you gotta use it correctly.
If you're just plugging it in, letting it record, and never using it again, then I think you're right. Then I think your muscles are gonna start to, what is it? Atrophy like, it's like, right, you're going the wrong direction, you're actually getting lazier, and you're doing yourself a disservice and your clients a disservice.
So I, I think there's a, it depends again how you use it, right?
Winston: Yeah. That's helpful. Thanks, Derek. Okay. So I shouldn't just create an AI Winston to do all these interviews for me when I have to record these podcasts is what No. Is what you're advising me against. Yeah. No, I should, I should keep doing it myself.
Derek: People want to talk to human beings.
Yeah. That's just how it is. And if we can use tech to make that a little easier, cool. Like, that's great. But like. People don't want creepy. People don't want fake, they want genuine, and they want it. I mean, I said earlier, people are looking for hyper-personalization, yet digitally enhanced and they want to work with a human advisor.
Yep. So any tech that you get should do those three things for you.
Winston: That’s right. So Derek, I think one of the questions that's in the back of a lot of advisors’ minds is, when do I start using this, right?
Like, do I start adopting it now to take advantage of this or do I kind of wait and see? You have a Yeah. Great question. Perspective on that. Mm-hmm.
Derek: I've always been an early adopter, but that doesn't mean I'm adopting it and using it with clients. So I think there's a distinction there. I think you owe it to yourself and to your clients to know what's going on.
They're expecting you to tell them what to do with their money and what's changing and being proactive. You should do the same with your business. So. If a new tech comes out, go demo it. Go play with it. Get a free account, see how it works. Don't use it with clients, use it with yourself. Use it with your spouse, your mom, your dad, your grandma, whatever, and play around with that.
I think that's the first filter and be like, okay, how did it feel? Go back to those top five things that I was saying about it. What it, you know, advisors should look for in tech. Did it pass those things? Does it help me do these things? Yes, it does. Okay. Cool. Well, like what is the stability now of this tech and how much does it cost?
And how hard would it be to implement for my business? Those are the next kind of questions that come to mind. But initially, yes, early adopters start messing with this stuff and then go from there.
Winston: Yeah. I think the question boils down to is the tech good enough so.
Should I wait until it gets to a certain point before I start applying it to somewhere else? Even if I'm experimenting it with it now, I see the deficiency, the tech, so how long is it gonna be before it's good enough to do X, Y, Z?
And then second, like I may be using a general purpose tool like a ChatGPT.
When is it gonna be applied to advisors? So. Do you have a perspective on that? Like you're an insider, you have a good look under the hood. Where are we in the development of AI as a technology? And, where are we in the development of AI as it's applied specifically to advisors?
Derek: That's crystal ball stuff. My crystal ball's never worked. Um, I think we're earlier on in the overall development cycle. I think there's a lot to learn. There's a lot we just don't know. 'Cause AI is pretty remarkable what's happening now, what it's starting to do almost on its own. So I think we're earlier on.
There's a lot of growth potential, but I also think we'll probably see some consolidation. There'll be certain players that make it and some don't. Some that comes down to capitalization, smart moves, pivots, that types of thing. I think insurance and wealth management, you're gonna see a lag. Our industry's always been a bit slower to adopt and use tools, so other industries might be like going gangbusters with some of these things where we're just starting to use them.
Does that answer the question?
Winston: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I think it's really helpful to just keep in mind that it's still early. But that doesn't mean that you should just like, let it rip until a certain point when someone drops it in your lap. Right? Like, start using what's out there now.
Maybe don't use it with clients, you know, maybe don't implement it all across your enterprise and put a huge amount of money and time into it. But stay sharp and I think your perspective on, because that's what clients are expecting you to do with their money.
And so that's what you should be doing with your business. I think that's a really helpful perspective.
Derek: You have to be proactive. You do. And it's out there and it's not going away. Proof of concept is done like we know it works. Yeah. And it's only gonna get better. So now how do I apply it in this industry for whether it's a, you know, back office stuff, sales support, whatever, you know, lead gen, whatever it is.
But I would also like, encourage decision-makers on tech, especially when you are impacting large sales forces. Don't lag too long, right? Like. I understand there's internal politics and stuff going on, but like, don't lag too long. Things are moving quicker, and at the end of the day, who do we answer to?
We answer to the client. Client's using all this stuff for everything else in their life.
Mm-hmm.
We should probably start trying to meet them where they're at because what's interesting now is clients are more informed than they have ever been. Have access to information like never before. So if they can't get an experience and information from the advisor they have, they will go find it from when they can.
Winston: Right, right. Yeah, that's a great perspective. I want to pivot real quickly to finish out our conversation, Derek, to the other side of the table, which is what you wish AI fintech founders knew about advisors. So, I think that's an interesting, uh, maybe challenging dynamic with the, let's call it post-November 2022 Gen AI boom, is that you have a lot more emphasis on the tech than the fin in fintech when it comes to a lot of these AI tools.
Right. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's a bad thing, but yeah. What are some things that you wish AI fintech founders knew as they were talking, building for advisors?
Derek: I love that we have outside tech by trying to break down barriers and help our industry. I think it's good. And sometimes the best ideas come from outside of a certain organization or industry.
With that said, being an advisor or running a firm with advisors is really, really hard and there's a lot of nuances that an outside tech founder who's never been in the space, just has no idea about.
Mm-hmm.
You know, like high level, like stuff, whether it's compliance or like inconsistent paychecks, rejection, working with clients, like all of these things.
And it's like drinking from a fire hose the first five years as an advisor. All this stuff that you have to learn. Right. So I've got another list, like I think of like five things I'd like to share. That, if you are a tech provider building into fintech, into insurance wealth management, like please keep these on your radar.
'Cause I think it's gonna help you. Well, it's gonna help you sell, but it's also gonna like just show that you care about the people you're trying to serve. Yeah. Like for one thing, I've said this many times, advisors don't want more tech. They want less friction. So make my life easier. And so I always, like, I, I try to tell advisors like actually have a smaller tech stack.
I think that's really, really important. 'Cause it, they only have so much time in the day. Most advisors don't want to be a technologist, but they want to use tech to make their life easier. So. A good way to think about, it's like, does your tech kind of disappear into the ether as part of their practice?
It's there operating, but they're barely thinking about it and it's making their life easier in the process. That is a great way to do it. And I've got a number of technology friends that have done stuff like that, which is just like, it's there, it's working, but I don't really have to think about it.
It's not a pain in the butt. I don't dread logging into it. Right, right. That's one for sure. Remember that people are not gonna buy your tech, they're gonna buy the human connection your tech provides.
Mm-hmm.
Another thing that they should be thinking about, right? So remember at the end of the day, a lot of advisors whether it's investments, life insurance, whatever, they're selling intangibles.
Other than maybe the paper statement they get, there's really not, they don't get to go touch the stock certificate, you know, or whatever. Or the life insurance. And so they're selling intangibles. In other words, they're selling trust, they're selling relationships. So human connection is the product.
So does your tech help the advisor deepen, again, we said this before, does it help the advisor build the relationship, build the trust? Here's the next one. Please think about compliance. Whether it's a small solo shop or a massive national organization, there are a lot of compliance hurdles that have to go through, and some of it is company policy, like, Hey, we have our own policies, and those policies are driven by state and or federal actual guidelines that they have to follow.
It's a pain in the butt. It's really hard to understand some of these things, especially when the policy is an added layer and those policies are there because they just want to have 'em there. So you have to remember that and like, how does your product actually understand the compliance environment an advisor is in, simple stuff like record keeping, right?
If your product is facilitating conversations in some way, how are you record keeping that? Because each advisor and firm has to record all of that. Are you doing that? Did you think about that? Like, how is that working? You know, all that kind of stuff.
So create tech that creates less risk, not more risk for these advisors and firms. So tech companies do a lot of demos. I've done a ton of demos for Couplr, but at the end of the day, advisors sell through education now more than ever before, not demos. So is the tech that you're providing, is it, is it providing advice, engagement, insights and deepening the relationship and making their life easier?
Both the client and advisor? That's what you want, like that's alignment between client and advisor. And is your tech doing that? If you're just trying to like transactional? I mean there are places transactional works, but it's not as much as it used to be. Right? So it's something to think about.
And I think, finally is like, make it easy, please. Like, what's your onboarding process? If I'm a firm and I have to roll this out to 5,000 advisors, how long is that gonna take me? Yeah. Like, so for example, Couplr, we can roll out Couplr to 5,000 advisors in a day. It's quick, it's easy, it's streamlined, and there's almost no learning curve 'cause we've made it that simple.
But if your tech is not fast, it's not easy to onboard for the advisor, it's not intuitive, they're not going to use it. And a month, six months, a year later be like, why am I paying for this thing? Because advisors will get shiny object syndrome and they'll buy it 'cause they think it's gonna solve a problem, but then they find out it's a real big bear to use and then they won't use it and then it's gone.
So make it easy for them to onboard and use versus not. I'll summarize it there. That's, I think that that's a good place to end it.
Winston: Yeah. That's great. That's super helpful Derek. So for, I don't know how many fintech founders are listening to this podcast. That's from advisors meant for advisors, but.
Hopefully this lands in some of their inboxes and they can give it a listen 'cause I think that's really good counsel that will, will help. A lot of advisors will save them a lot of time as they're looking at these different vendors that are competing for their attention.
Derek: Even if you're an advisor at a large firm or a medium sized or small firm, forward this to the people that make the decisions.
Have them listen to it. Right? You know, like, hey, like. Here's some insights that might help when you guys are going through your RFP process to bring on tech. Right? There we go.
Winston: Love it. Yeah. As an advisor, what AI solution are you hoping someone builds for you?
Derek: I think, you know, maybe like, just like an overall perspective or thought is that. AI should be used to enhance human connection, not to replace it. And what's the original AI? Advisor intelligence. So use technology that helps advisors be better advisors.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, I, and you could say that the same for tech founders, we're people, man.
You know, and like people wanna meet, be with people and talk to people and have relationships. And I think, in my opinion, I think where we're gonna see technology go once the initial flash in the pan of oh, tech's amazing. Is like, man, I think society as a whole is gonna feel a little lonely. Yeah. And they're gonna be looking for opportunities to have more human connection, but enhanced through technology.
Winston: Yeah. There was that Zuckerberg interview that's been making the rounds, right. Those headlines about like, no one's gonna have friends or we're gonna have AI companions, even romance.
Derek: Oh man. I got, I started to see red on that one a little bit, Winston. Like, it's, um, pun intended, people are wired to connect with people and so he's like, he's talking about having like, your kids will not have friends anymore.
They'll just have AI friends, like That's right. I don't know what world that works in. And I don't know, maybe that's his world, but, um, I think that's a terrible direction to go. I wanna sit with somebody I can laugh with, cry with, get a beer with, you know, that kind of stuff. And AI's not gonna do that.
Winston: Yeah. But to just put a bottom line on it, it sounds like you've been really encouraged by how AI. Not just your company and why you founded it, but as a technology and where people are taking the technology, how AI has really empowered advisors to deepen their relationships, to form stronger connections with their clients, to help them at a more personal, empathetic level that is, of course, compliant, checks off all the boxes.
So it sounds like you're encouraged by where all this is going.
Derek: Very encouraged, very happy. It's a great new toolkit that we're able to get our hands on if used correctly. You know, I think that's important. But I'm very, very happy with where it's going. I'm not afraid of it. I'm not worried about it.
Just, be a good, responsible human being and use it correctly, and the rest takes care of itself.
Winston: There we go. Hey, thanks so much for taking the time, chatting with us today, Derek. Really appreciate it.
Derek: Great to be with you, Winston. Thank you very much.
Shaun: That does it for this PracticeLab episode.
One thing Derek made very clear is how important it is to not get left behind on AI. I think we all felt that.
So, if you’re looking for help taking the next step when it comes to AI, we would love to help. Reach out to your Capital Group contact today. We’d love to speak with you. After all, just like Derek said, it’s all about human connection.
And don’t forget to subscribe to the PracticeLab podcast and share this episode with other people who might find it useful.
Thanks so much for listening.
Winston: In this episode, Derek mentioned a couple terms we need to define. CRM stands for customer relationship management. RFP stands for request for proposal.
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