Jon Stevenson, President and Co-Founder of Astraeus, discusses the urgent need for AI-native infrastructure in the wealth management industry. Over the next five years, RIAs will see tech-enriched workflows including agentic automation of manual processes and more holistic advisor-client relationships enabled by unified client views—but these advances require purpose-built AI infrastructure to support business growth.
Key implementation challenges include fragmented vendor stacks and data environments that demand organizational data cohesion beyond simple data lakes. Stevenson recommends starting with high-friction, high-ROI use cases tied to rich datasets to build reusable AI capabilities, noting that smaller firms may move faster due to simpler technology environments. Success depends on codifying the firm’s data layer to enable scalable, intelligent automation.