{"id":723964,"date":"2026-06-08T23:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/723964\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T23:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:12:15","slug":"ai-intensifies-war-for-talent-in-wealth-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/723964\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Intensifies War for Talent in Wealth Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

As artificial intelligence and other tremors rock the financial services industry, Cresset CEO Susie Cranston speculated that the war for talent may intensify.<\/p>\n

During last week\u2019s BNY INSITE conference in Aurora, Colo., Cranston said that \u201cover time, even with AI,\u201d finding experienced individuals may become more challenging, prompting the firm to develop more talent in-house.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calling talent \u201cthe only insurance policy you have in a highly uncertain world,\u201d Cranston\u2019s framing echoed that of other conference speakers, such as ClientWise CEO Ray\u00a0Sclafani, who told his audience that AI was \u201ca talent strategy issue, not a tech issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview at the conference,\u00a0Cranston said if someone attends any CEO gathering lately, they\u2019ll find widespread agreement that the current period includes \u201cthe most rapid change that we\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d and finding (and keeping) talent is the best way to safeguard a company for a future that is wholly unpredictable.<\/p>\n

Related:The Old Recruiting Playbook Is Losing to Culture, Optionality and Ownership<\/a><\/p>\n

However, Cranston stressed that advisors must be willing to experiment with AI, as individuals unwilling to do so will delay firms\u2019 integration of the tools, leading to higher costs and uncompetitive products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having AI \u201cfluent\u201d advisors will also help with a client base that\u2019s likely to use such tools in their own dealings with advisors (for example, inputting financial documents to generative AI and asking for takeaways).\u00a0Cranston said the Cresset team discussed possibilities in which agentic AI develops enough that clients have their own agents retrieving information from reps.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine a role where AI agents are going to reach out to advisors and say, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m prepping my person for the next day, and I need you to give me all the documents you\u2019re going to go through with my person tomorrow,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not an unlikely scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ryan Shanks, the chief growth officer for Apollon Wealth Management, the \u201ccharacter fit\u201d between a rep and a potential new firm remains paramount in the age of AI, telling\u00a0WealthManagement\u00a0that if firms and new advisors don\u2019t each have ways to screen the partnership, they could run into difficulties later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a chaotic, noisy marketplace. Everybody\u2019s out there trying to do a deal. Everybody\u2019s throwing money at opportunity,\u201d Shanks said. \u201cSo the problem that we have is there\u2019s a lot of noise, and it\u2019s very much a gray area that advisors are in to try to evaluate. If I\u2019m being told it\u2019s legit, how can I validate it? You can\u2019t. You have to just say, \u2018I\u2019m going to trust this organization and everybody I\u2019m talking to to be forthcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:The Real Story Behind Ameriprise Raising Recruiter Fees to 16%<\/a><\/p>\n

One aspect of advisor recruiting that Cranston said AI could greatly assist with is transitions between firms. In the past, advisors moving between firms had to repaper, creating a \u201cbig logistical shift\u201d for reps and clients alike. Cranston said that with AI, this could become instantaneous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe client just says to the AI agent, \u2018Yep, give my advisor everything they need at their new firm.\u2019 And so the move might actually get a lot easier,\u201d she said. \u201cThe work of the transition might actually not be so much moving the assets, but it might be resetting up all the little things that AI did before.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his presentation,\u00a0Sclafani\u00a0pinpointed six simultaneous forces shaping \u201cthe talent landscape,\u201d including succession pressure, client expectations, advisor mobility, firm size, younger generations\u2019 ascents in the workplace and AI.<\/p>\n

Sclafani\u00a0said about 349,000 advisors changed firms last year, one of the highest rates in a decade, and about one in 10 advisors are expected to change practices in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That churn, coupled with the fact that firms with over $1 billion in AUM represent only 22% of the market but manage almost 88% of the assets, puts a strain on both potential employers and employees, particularly for firms expecting to scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related:The Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors: Annual Report on Recruiting, Deals, and Transitions<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have the bench strength based upon the expected rate of organic growth and the expected rate of inorganic growth through M&A?\u201d he asked. \u201cDo you have the bench strength in your organization to continue to scale up the rate that you\u2019re going to need, or are you going to run out of that talent?\u201d<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Sclafani, large RIAs that are continuing to scale are asking those questions now.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Hey, are we able to retain the advisors that we have? What is the culture? What does the nature of the work look like?\u2019\u201d he asked, speculating on those questions. \u201cThe nature of the work is changing dramatically. The nature of the workplace matters, and for those in charge, if there\u2019s not a strong relationship and culture, (employees) may choose to vote with their feet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As artificial intelligence and other tremors rock the financial services industry, Cresset CEO Susie Cranston speculated that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":["post-723964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}