December 8, 2025 • 43 mins
Will AI replace—or empower—financial advisors? Performance coach Kevin Bishopp shares how financial professionals are already leveraging AI tools, potential risks ahead, and new opportunities to thrive in an AI era.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ryan (00:16):
Well, it's been about three years since artificial
intelligence has come on thescene.
Since then, it's really beenguiding the narrative in the
economy, in the financialmarkets.
Many white-collar employees areworried about disruption, how
that will impact their job two,three years down the road or 10
years down the road.
That's no exception when itcomes to the financial services
(00:40):
industry.
And to help think through howthis might impact financial
advisors in the years ahead andhow it's already impacting our
industry.
Today I'm joined by KevinBishop.
Kevin is a performance coachand national speaker at First
Trust with about three decadesworth of experience in the
industry.
Most of that, again, has beenfocused on helping financial
(01:02):
professionals be moreproductive, be more efficient.
I'm really looking forward tothis conversation with Kevin.
Thanks for joining us on thisepisode of the First Trust ROI
podcast.
You've been around for a while.
I think I was looking at yourbio and it said that you 30
years, but there's no way you'reold enough to have been in the
(01:23):
industry for 30 years.
I mean, you're a springchicken, Kevin.
Kevin (01:27):
Yeah, well, so I I got my first job in nine in 96.
So next next year it'll be 30years.
That's crazy.
Ryan (01:35):
Um okay, so over the past 30 years, uh, what would you, as
you kind of retrospectivelylook back, what do you think the
biggest change has beencompared to 30 years ago,
looking at where we are today?
Kevin (01:51):
So in the financial services space, the number one
answer from my perspective iscomplexity.
It is massively morecomplicated.
There are far more products,there are more complex and
volatile markets.
We've got higher regulatorystandards for financial
professionals and teams allacross the country.
That's that's not going away.
(02:12):
Um you've got clients who nowhave access to more information,
uh more data, which uh promptstheir inquiries to their
financial advisors saying, hey,what are we thinking about on
this topic, on that topic?
Uh so those clients want moreservice advice and planning.
Uh and and the technology inour industry just continues to
(02:34):
adapt.
I I remember a time where um wegot this really cool thing
called email, uh, and and it wasawesome because you could
actually just send an electronicmessage to a colleague.
And it was it was internal andit was clunky, but but it it
ratcheted up the level ofefficiency in the in the role
that I was in.
And you look at where we're attoday, uh it's it's entirely
(02:58):
different.
I mean, when I when I startedin the industry, we were just
moving away from dial upinternet, right?
I remember prodigy and dial upinternet, and today everything
is 5G on your phone in yourpocket, iPads, tablets,
docu-sign, you name it.
So um it's it's morecomplicated and it's moving at a
(03:19):
faster pace.
When I'm in front of a largeaudience, oftentimes I'll say,
Okay, how who in the audiencehas been in the business 25 or
30 years?
A number of hands go up, and Isay, Okay, can you tell me which
year it got easier?
And and every time theychuckle, they laugh because they
know every single year it'sit's moving at a faster pace
with a higher level ofcomplexity.
(03:41):
And when you when you couplethat with the advisors who have
had success, they've grown theirbusinesses, they have more
clients, that just puts evenmore demands on their time.
And so they are under even morecapacity pressure today than
ever before.
Ryan (03:58):
It's it is crazy to think back just how much has changed
in.
I mean you mentioned email, andI was just thinking like my
first, I don't think I had anemail address that I used until
maybe 1999.
I mean, I maybe I had one, butyou know, if you have an email
address and nobody to email, youknow, you just don't do
(04:22):
anything with it.
Kevin (04:23):
Um I re I remember my first my first legitimate email
address was when I was afreshman at the University of
Washington.
Ryan (04:30):
Yeah.
Kevin (04:30):
And I got a a Washington.edu email address,
and and I I didn't know what todo with it at first.
Ryan (04:37):
Yeah.
Kevin (04:38):
Um so you know, we're that's 34 years ago.
We've come a long way in arelatively short amount of time.
Ryan (04:46):
Yeah.
It's uh it's and and most ofthose changes in retrospect, I
mean, it's there's there's nodenying that email makes it
easier to stay in touch withpeople and communicate with
people, and that all theinformation at your fingertips
on your on your cell phone givesyou more information, more
access to information.
It means you have to interpreta lot more information and you
(05:07):
know you have a lot morequestions and a lot more um
different viewpoints on theanswers to those questions.
So I think the complexity, notjust in our industry, but in
society in general, um, hasmaybe increased over that time
period.
Kevin (05:22):
Oh, absolutely.
And you have companies now thatare they are competing for your
attention.
Because their their model is isadvertising clicks.
And if they can they can drawyou in, whether it's with a link
in an email, whether it's apop-up ad in your browser,
something inside of an app,right?
Every time you get lured awayand you click and you go down
(05:44):
that track, that's that'srevenue for a lot of these
companies.
So they're competing for yourtime and attention.
So you know, we as consumers,regardless of or as business
owners, whatever industry you'rein, right, it it's an
onslaught, right?
And so one of the things thatum that I share with teams is
you know, you have to be highlyintentional.
(06:05):
If you're gonna manage yourcapacity as a business, and in
this case a financialprofessional, um, you have to be
willing to say no to a numberof activities, right?
We we we can't do everything,we can't have everybody as
clients.
Um we we uh we certainly needto limit the the amount of
intake of information becauseyou've got wholesalers and
(06:27):
different asset management firmsknocking on your door, calling,
sending emails.
Um so the best teams that wework with have become
increasingly protective of theirtime because that's their most
precious resource.
The time that they have tospend with their clients as a
team to build their business.
Um that is for for virtuallyall of them their biggest
(06:51):
financial asset as well.
And so they I don't want to saythey go into protectionist
mode, but they're very, verydiligent about making sure that
they're spending the right, theright amount of time on the
right activities with the rightclients.
And that's that's a hallmark ofsuccess for the best uh teams
that we work with across thecountry.
Ryan (07:13):
So I think all of these technologies that we've been
talking about are are inherentlydisruptive.
If you look back, you know howthey were disruptive, and you
kind of know who the winners andlosers and the benefits, the
puts, the takes.
Um one that we don't know theanswer to yet, and this is uh
largely why I wanted to have youon the podcast, is artificial
(07:33):
intelligence.
And you know, you and I had theopportunity to speak at the
same uh event um a few weeksago, maybe a month ago.
Um, and I I got to listen toyour take on how AI is going to
impact the financial servicesbusiness.
And you hear a lot aboutwhite-collar professionals being
disrupted, and you know, youyou don't really know what to do
(07:56):
with that, I think, as afinancial professional and as a
professional in anotherindustry, you know, because we
don't know how you're going tobe impacted.
We don't really know the fullpotential of these technologies,
we don't know what AI is goingto be very good at a few years
from now, that maybe it's not asgood at today.
Um so I wanted you to share alittle bit on your perspective
(08:20):
of you know how is this going tobe disruptive?
And at this point, do you thinkwho should be afraid and and
who shouldn't be afraid that AIis going to displace them or
take their jobs?
Kevin (08:33):
Yeah.
So that that is the number onequestion that I get from
financial professionals andteams is hey, are are our jobs
at risk as financial advisors asa result of AI?
And there's a two-part answerto that question.
The actually it's a three-partanswer.
The first part is no, your jobtoday is not at risk unless your
(08:56):
business is commoditized.
Meaning, if all you're doing isbuilding portfolios, some basic
planning, addressing clients'immediate needs, you know, get
them into a 529 plan, talk tothem about some insurance.
Um, if if you're operating atthe commodity level, which is
immediate needs for clients, yourun a higher risk of being
(09:18):
displaced by AI because that'sthe first place that AI is going
to go.
Because it's the least complexof the work that you do as a
financial professional.
So if you if you want to if youwant to decommoditize yourself,
you move away from immediateproblem solving of basic needs
for clients, and then you startto talk about goals.
(09:39):
When do you want to retire?
How do you want to fund kids'college education?
What do you want to have happenif uh if one of you predeceases
the other, what happens in thein the form of disability?
These become more complexquestions.
These uh start to require somemore calculations, some more
math, but also requires you totruly understand what clients
(10:01):
care about, what they'repassionate about, how they're
feeling about on certain topics.
And so that's the next stepaway from commoditization is to
start talking about a client'sgoals.
That's going to be the nextplace that AI tries to go.
It's going to try to work upthis chain of what we call
modern value, but it's going totake time.
So layer one of modern value iscommoditized, basic needs.
(10:23):
That's where AI will chip awayfirst.
Second tier would be criticalgoals for clients.
Uh, third tier, and this iswhere you start to get further
away from what AI will be ableto do, or said another way, it
will take it much longer to getto this space, is you engage
clients in a conversationaround, hey, what does it really
mean to feel financiallysecure?
What gives you peace of mind?
(10:44):
Now you start talking about howassets are custodied,
transition of wealth to nextgeneration, you start talking
about taking care of agingparents, um, long-term care
insurance, all these sorts ofthings so that you get to a
place with clients where theyknow my my team helps me with
wherever life and wealthintersect, or excuse me, yeah,
(11:07):
wherever life and wealthintersect.
My advisor is there for me.
And they've put solutions inplace, plans in place, a client
experience model where if we dothese things, we we're confident
that we're gonna be okay.
We're gonna have what we needfor retirement, we're gonna be
able to protect those savings,we're gonna be able to pay for
kids' college to the degree thatwe want to, weddings, etc.
(11:30):
That's that's tier numberthree, would be financial
security, financial freedom.
And then tier number four isall about helping them build a
legacy.
When you have a conversationwith a client around, hey, what
type of legacy do you want toleave behind?
You are you are at a placewhere you're in a position to
add unique value.
It's as far away fromcommoditization as you can be in
(11:54):
our industry, and it's also theplace where you can command
premium pricing, or said anotherway, you are the most
fee-worthy in terms of whatyou're delivering to a client.
So part one of the answer toyour question is AI is not going
to replace the advisor unlessthey're stuck in that
commoditized zone of onlydealing with immediate needs.
(12:15):
Yeah.
Second, the second piece ofthat is the caveat that says,
now you you might be operatingabove that commoditized zone and
talking to clients aboutlegacy, but you might actually
run the risk of being displacednot by directly by AI, but by
another advisor or team or firmthat's using AI to enhance their
(12:39):
capabilities, to go deeper withplanning, better understanding
of clients, build betterportfolios, better client
experience, more content, moreeducation they're making
available.
So you you get to a place wherenow it's it's not a direct
threat from AI, but it's acompetitive risk from other
(12:59):
teams that are that are using AIto their advantage.
Ryan (13:02):
Yeah, that's uh that's a very good point.
And actually, that makes me uhkind of wonder about where we
are today with respect to AI andits impact and the tools that
are being used already byfinancial professionals in
achieving some of the uhobjectives that you just kind of
(13:23):
laid out for us.
Um, you know, the things thatthat help them add unique value.
So you talked to a lot offinancial advisors, you're kind
of much more keyed in on thisthan I am.
Uh, where are you seeing AIalready have an impact on some
of those financial advisors,especially in areas that maybe
those that haven't embraced AIshould be aware of because it is
(13:46):
a competitive threat?
Kevin (13:47):
Yeah.
Hands down, the number onecapability that advisors are
benefiting from and that largerfirms are are putting in place
is the ability to have AI sitsidecar in conversations and to
be able to transcribe andsummarize the conversation and
deliver it back to the financialadvisor or team.
(14:10):
These would be tools like Jumpor Zox or maybe your Zoom note
taker or your Team's AI notetaker.
That capability advisors aretelling us that that capability
is giving them hours back perweek.
And the more innovative uhtools in that space, they don't
(14:31):
just transcribe and deliver ameeting summary.
They allow you to customize theorder in which you want that
summary to come back to you.
So you can you can talk with aclient about any number of
topics in whatever order it canflow naturally, and then when
you get back your summary thatAI has delivered, right, you can
you can create a template sothat it always comes back to you
(14:52):
in the same order.
You know, we caught up ongoals, on life, then we talked
about taxable accounts andqualified accounts, we talked
about insurance, and and it willtake the kind of the jumbled
conversation that you've hadwith the client, deliver the
summary back in that order.
It will call out any to-doitems that were agreed upon, and
the more innovative tools willthen build tasks for the team's
(15:15):
CRM, could be Salesforce, couldbe Wealth Box, Red Tail, right?
It'll it'll can pre-constructthe tasks for the team.
It will even draft a potentialfollow-up email to go out to the
client.
Now, if you think about that asbeing the new paradigm that
we're operating in, what have wetaken away from the advisor?
(15:38):
We've taken away note-taking.
We've taken away havingsomebody else in the meeting to
take notes.
We've taken away the 15 to 30to 60 minutes post-meeting to
read those notes, organize thosenotes, dictate them, copy,
talk, drag in into your PC,review them, you know,
distribute them, then buildtasks, and then you still have
(16:00):
to get on the keyboard and starttyping an email.
Hey, Bill and Sue, great to seeyou today, et cetera, et
cetera.
All of that is gone.
Now we're at a point where it'sthe summary is delivered, the
tasks are pre-built, the emailis pre-drafted.
I just need to go in and reviewthat, make a few modifications,
and and send those thingsalong.
That that is the number onecapability that we're seeing
(16:24):
advisors get the mostproductivity lift from is that
AI sitting sidecar, transcribingmeetings, and then getting
involved in the follow-upactivities.
Second big thing that we areseeing at firms, and this is for
larger firms, wirehouses,bigger independents, is they're
taking all of their back officeoperational processes, all of
(16:47):
the intel in all theirprocedures manuals, and they're
loading that into an AI model.
And they're they're creatingtheir own chatbots behind the
scenes, they're creating theirown GPT so that if uh a
financial professional or theirsupport staff have a question,
they don't have to go searchingfor answers.
They could just say, What formsdo I need to open up a 529 plan
(17:10):
in the state of Virginia?
Boom.
Right?
And and it just automaticallywill start returning the
information that's needed on theforms, the process, etc.
So they're they've taken all ofthis library of information,
process, procedures, all ofthat, and and turned it into
something that's on demand justvia uh uh chat box.
(17:35):
Okay.
Um where they're going with thatis is some firms are already
starting to dabble with all oftheir investment Intel, all of
their uh information onfinancial markets, products,
behind the scenes, putting thatat everybody's fingertips as
well in in the same fashion.
Um third biggest thing that wesee advisors benefiting from is
the use of Chat GPT, co-pilot,um, your your your more
(17:59):
traditional generative AI.
They're using that foreverything from helping with
drafting of simple emails allthe way through to uh scripting
for podcasts, scripting forvideo, writing articles, writing
white papers, um the thegenerative AI, the the
(18:20):
co-pilots, the GPTs uh if yougive them great prompts, you
will be blown away at the draftof output that you can get back
from them.
And um it's all of that justadds up to more productivity for
financial professionals andteams.
Ryan (18:37):
I was listening to your um the the first uh section of of
what you just laid out for usabout note-taking, kind of
verbally recording and takingnotes and having follow-up, and
I remember just a couple yearsago, uh maybe it was a year and
a half ago, I was in, I wastraveling with um one of our
(19:02):
salespeople in South America,and we were talking to a I
believe it was a pension fund,and they were Spanish speaking.
And the person that we werespeaking with was English
speaking, and you know, I I havea little bit of high school
Spanish, but it's not uhanything that is uh quality,
high quality enough to be ableto communicate with somebody in
(19:23):
in financial terms.
But we had this meeting, andbefore that they asked if they
could record it, and we said,sure, go ahead.
And they had an output that notonly did all the things that
you were saying, but it alsotranslated it from English into
Spanish and provided those notesso they could then distribute
it to their team.
And I thought, man, this isjust this is a game changer.
(19:46):
Um, the the ability to actuallycommunicate even across
different languages.
It's it's really good.
Kevin (19:53):
Yeah, so I I I have a similar story, right?
I I was asked to speak at aconference in Texas uh by one of
our larger partners.
And they were the first, theywere the first firm to ever make
this ask.
They said, could you record a90-second promo video for your
session so that when our teamsare looking at the conference
agenda, they can click on thedifferent uh previews for all
(20:16):
these different sessions, andthey can not only learn what
it's about, but they can seeyour speaking style, a little
bit more about you, etc.
And I thought, well, that's agreat idea.
So I I jumped on a platformjust like what we're using
today.
I recorded a video, I sent itto Steve Nelson, one of one of
the guys who's critical at FirstTrust in video production and
(20:37):
all things marketing.
I said, Hey, can we put abumper on this on the front end,
on the back end, polish it up alittle bit?
He said, Great, I can do it.
And then maybe 10 minuteslater, 15 minutes later, I get a
link, I get an email back fromhim, and it says, Hey, I just it
says, I just doubled youraudience, dot dot dot.
And I thought, well, what couldhe have done to my little promo
(20:58):
video to double the number ofpeople that are come to my
session, come to my session?
And so I I opened the videothat he sent back, and it was my
promo in Spanish.
My face, my mouth moving,appearing like I was speaking
Spanish.
I knew that that AI could dosome cool stuff from a video
(21:19):
perspective.
Uh I had no idea that it thatit was that simple or that
though that those tools existed.
Now there's there's a wholenother more nefarious side of
that with the deepfakes and andall that kind of stuff.
But um I mean the capabilitiesare are astounding.
And the application of of a lotof this uh AI in terms of
(21:44):
modeling, crunching numbers,data has tremendous application
for process development, forbusiness uh efficiencies, for
better logistics, inventorymanagement.
Um it'll it'll continue torevolutionize the biotech
industry because uh a lot of thetesting that we do will be
replaced with AI simulations.
(22:06):
And so it's it's gonna continueto transform uh virtually all
areas of our lives.
And and for some people thatthat can be exciting, for some
people that makes them morenervous.
Um but but we're all gonna havethe opportunity to experience
what that looks like in thecoming years.
Ryan (22:26):
Yeah, and I think that also begs the question on
reliability, because I I had asimilar experience uh one of our
podcasts, we actually had mespeaking in Japanese, which was
um which was really interesting,but we ended up not releasing
the podcast in Japanese becausethere was some errors in the
(22:48):
translation and it just wasn'thigh quality enough.
And the same is even true, Ithink, with some of the output
that financial advisors mighthave from those meetings.
Um and and is that the case inyour experience?
I mean, how important is it tokind of check the work that
these chatbots and um you knowthe different AI applications
are what check their output?
Kevin (23:10):
Yeah, so it's it's paramount that if you're gonna
use AI for any generativeactivity, you're gonna generate
uh written content, you're gonnagenerate a video, you're gonna
generate a script.
Uh, you have to go back andreview that for accuracy.
Right?
And the reason that you need todo that is because in the event
that a financial professionalor team is audited, whether it's
(23:32):
FINRA, whether it's the SEC,let's say they come back in and
they say, hey, this particularmarketing piece that you
prepared and sent out has someinaccuracies, you can't format
data this way, that way, etc.,it will not be a sufficient
defense to say, well, that'swhat ChatGPT gave me.
Right?
That's that's not gonna holdany water.
So it's it's on you to verifyit for accuracy.
(23:56):
But even beyond that, um, it'svery, very important that
whatever you send to a client,right, if you pull it out of AI
and directly try to pass it offas yours, you will be perceived
as inauthentic.
And that will happen very, veryquickly because your clients
know you.
They know your voice, they knowhow you talk, you've sent them
(24:18):
a variety of emails, you mayhave language on your website or
content that you've written.
And so they've established intheir mind their perception of,
hey, when I interact with Ryan,my advisor, I I know it's him
because of the way that he talksand what I get from him and the
tone of his emails, etc.
If you're just taking stuffstraight out of AI and purposing
it as your as your own, even ifyou source it, it you run the
(24:42):
risk of being perceived asinauthentic.
And if clients start to sensethat, hey, I'm I'm getting
things from my advisor that seemlike they're just boilerplate
stuff that I could get out ofAI, they're going to begin to
question and wonder now, why arewe paying the fees that we're
paying if if I can get this typeof information with a good
prompt into ChatGPT or Copilot,et cetera.
(25:06):
So you have to take enoughtime, put enough energy and
creativity into refining whatyou get out of AI to make sure
that your voice is heard withinthat particular output.
Ryan (25:21):
Yeah, and that's I've noticed that I don't know if if
uh those that have iPhones haveused this tool at all, but AI on
your iPhone will now,responding to a text, make a
suggestion.
And I have not once, never everused that suggestion because it
doesn't sound authentic at all.
(25:41):
It's some I don't know who itsounds like, uh, but it
certainly doesn't sound like me.
Um and I'm uh it just seemslike one of, I mean, no offense
to Apple, but one of the mostuseless AI applications I've
seen so far is the uh theresponse that I would give in a
text.
I mean, I've just never usedit.
Kevin (26:00):
So what is likely to happen, right, or the natural
evolution of AI in that spacewill be in the future, there'll
be enough bandwidth, there'll beenough horsepower so that AI
will have been paying attentionto previous text responses that
you have written, and it will goin and refine and optimize its
recommendations.
And the only reason that I saythat is because that's now
(26:23):
happening with ChatGPT Copilotand a lot of the generative AI.
For example, if I if I promptChatGPT to create something for
me, it will it will inherentlydo a couple of things that it
didn't used to do.
The newer version of ChatGPTwill act as its own prompt
engineer.
And it will say, hey, here'swhat I here's what I'm giving
(26:45):
you based upon your prompt.
But if you modified yourinstruction in this way, then I
think you will get better outputand what you're actually
looking for.
So it's it's running its ownprompt engineering.
It's basically saying, hey, yougave me some instructions, but
they're not very goodinstructions because based upon
how I've been trained and andand the way that other people
(27:05):
are looking for the sameinformation, I think I can get
you what you really want if wemodify the instruction that
you've given me.
Now just think about that for aminute.
It's engineering your requestand optimizing it.
Not it's not only giving youback what you asked for
technically, but it's saying,hey, we can actually make this
(27:26):
better.
And then it will even saythings like, hey, and because
you're a for me, because you'rea consultant for financial
advisors and teams, have youthought about presenting it this
way in the form of a you know aMcKenzie layout or a Boston
consulting layout on thisparticular slide?
Like it's it's taking what itknows about me and it's taking
(27:47):
my my basic prompt, trying toenhance that, and even figuring
out how it relates to the typeof work that I'm doing.
So that type of capability isjust going to continue to be
enhanced in a variety of forms.
Ryan (28:04):
Yeah, that that's that makes a ton of sense.
I think the one of the biggestchallenges to using some of
these um ChatGPT or all theother variations and platforms
is understanding how to promptit in such a way that it gives
you the output that you reallywant.
And it seems like it's alearning process to figure that
(28:26):
out.
But anything they can do toaccelerate that to understand,
you know, that this is aniterative process where you get
some output and you say, well,this was good, but I want it
with a different tone of voice,or I want it optimized for a
certain type of consumer or acertain type of um of one of the
(28:47):
things that you pointed out inthe speech that I heard you give
was um optimize for searchresults, if it's a blog or
something like that.
I mean, I hadn't even thoughtabout that before.
So I think the ability of theseplatforms to actually help
consumers understand how toprompt them is going to be
something that could be uh areally maybe even a game changer
(29:09):
in terms of helping peopleadopt them in a better way.
Kevin (29:12):
Yeah, we we attack that in our five-part series that we
have on AI.
It's called Unlocking the Powerof AI.
And one of the things that weclearly spell out is when you
prompt, put three differentcomponents into your prompt.
Tell ChatGPT, your co-pilot,the the role that you want it to
play.
Think like a business owner,think like a financial
(29:34):
professional, think like anarchitect, think like an
entrepreneur, think like asoftware business owner.
Give it the role that you wantit to play, then give it the
goal.
That's the output that youwant.
Write me an email, draft me ablog post, right?
Give it the goal that you want,and the more color that you put
with that the better.
And then the third component isthe soul.
(29:55):
And the soul is the emotiveside or the preference side.
I want it, you know, a thousandwords, I want it written to,
you know, uh MBA level audience,um, or I want it more casual,
etc.
When you put those threecomponents at a minimum into
your prompt, you will get betteroutput.
So it's the role that you wantChatGPT to play, how you want it
(30:18):
to think, the goal is theoutput that you want, and then
the soul is the emotive side.
If you ask Chat GPT for all theingredients for a great prompt,
it's gonna give you eightdifferent components.
That's too many for the vastmajority of us.
So that's why we default backto starting with those three
role, goal, and soul.
And the more detail you can putinto your prompt, the more
(30:41):
specific you can be, the betteroutput you will get from these
tools.
Ryan (30:47):
So your team puts out a lot of content, and I know the
AI uh part of that content hasbeen very well received.
Uh, for those that areinterested in receiving some of
that content, is the best way tomaybe understand or get a hold
of that just to talk to theirfirst trust uh wholesaler?
(31:08):
Or how do they typically findthat?
Kevin (31:11):
Yeah, so the the easy button for the financial
professional is just to reachout to your first trust
wholesaler, either the internalwholesaler or the external
wholesaler.
Say, hey, I sat in on the ROIpodcast with Ryan and Kevin.
They talked about some AIresources that First Trust has
for financial advisors.
And if they even want to getmore specific, they could say,
you know, there's a five-partwebinar series, can I get
(31:33):
access?
And we can send them the flyer.
We have the same information ina 55-page white paper, which is
long.
Uh it's great white paper, alot of information.
Uh it's got a glossary of AItools in the back of what we've
seen teams using.
It's got 17 different ways thatfinancial professionals are
(31:54):
currently leveraging AI.
What I've been encouragingpeople to do is to get that
white paper and then throw itinto Chat GPT and say, give me a
bullet point summary of thewhite paper.
And I do that, I do that fortwo reasons.
One is I want to make it kindof more accessible, easier for
them to use because 55-page PDFis a lot to read.
(32:15):
But I also want them to startto dabble and see the
capabilities that exist with theAI that's already at their
fingertips.
Ryan (32:23):
It's really, it's really interesting because you could go
either way with AI.
You could have this list of uhan outline or a summary and say,
write me a 55-page white paper,and it would it would do that
to some degree.
Or you can take the 55-pagewhite paper and you say, boil
this down, do an outline andsome bullet points, and it can
(32:43):
go that way as well.
So it's it's uh it is aninteresting um, you know, just a
variety of ways that thistechnology can be used.
Kevin (32:50):
It's um so there's there's a couple other things I
love to share with um withaudiences.
One is you know, if you thinkabout the demographics of our
industry, the financial servicesindustry, average age of a
financial professional somewherein the neighborhood of 57, 58
years old.
Um we're in an older industryat the senior level, and one of
(33:13):
the realities that we battle isthat technology adoption rates
are inversely correlated to age.
That's a fancy way of sayingthat older people have a harder
time adopting new technologies.
So my encouragement toeverybody is hey, if if you find
yourself um you know pokingaround and looking at AI to
(33:33):
whatever degree you're doingthat today, just do 20 more
minutes of that per week.
Just commit uh an incrementalamount of time to paying
attention, to doing somereading, to start playing around
with the tools because it'sit's not going away.
Every firm on the street istrying to figure out how to use
AI to get faster, moreefficient.
(33:53):
Uh, you're seeing significantamounts of layoffs at large
firms, largely in part to theefficiencies that they're
getting behind the walls withartificial intelligence.
So commit some more time to it.
And in terms of the thecapabilities that exist, I'll
I'll try to share just a quickpersonal story because it was
(34:15):
enlightening to me in terms ofwhat AI can do.
Uh I've got three children.
My youngest, he's a20-year-old, he's in his junior
year of college, finance andecon major.
And when he was a freshman, sothis is now a couple years ago,
I was curious.
You know, he he he moves awayto college, he's on his own,
(34:35):
he's out of the nest, he's goingto class.
Um I said, hey buddy, I'm I'mdoing some research on AI for
work.
I'm just curious, as a as afreshman college student, like
what role is AI playing in yourlearning?
And I was I was trying to do itfor two reasons.
One, I wanted to find out if hewas using it to write his
papers and do his homework forhim.
(34:55):
Or and second, I wanted tofigure out you know what
capabilities exist.
And his answer blew me away.
He said, Dad, there is not asingle assignment that I work on
where I'm not using AI in someform.
Meaning it's getting meinformation, it's gathering
data, it's summarizing researchthat I need to read, it's
(35:18):
reformatting data that I foundon a source because I need it in
a different format.
Um, it's it's reviewingsomething that I've written and
helping me tweak it.
Um, it's checking for accuracythe accounting homework that
I've done.
Um or I took notes in an econlecture and I didn't really
(35:39):
understand what the professorwas saying, so I asked AI to
explain it to me a differentway.
I mean, every single thing thathe's working on today, uh he's
he's touching AI in some form.
I mean, if you go into acollege classroom, you'll see
kids, they've all got theirlaptop open and there's some
form of AI note-taker sittingsidecar because those things not
(36:00):
only take notes, but they'llprepare flashcards, they'll do
practice exams.
I mean, it it has infiltratededucation in an amazing way.
And that's just going tocontinue to evolve.
Um, but with that comes somerisk, right?
And the risk is for youngerpeople over-reliance on AI.
And this is actually foranybody, over-reliance on AI for
(36:22):
activities and tasks that areproblem-solving or creative
tasks.
The research that come that'scoming out is saying uh you run
the risk of material cognitivedecline if you over-rely on AI
in those areas, because yourbrain is a muscle.
The way that your your braingets stronger, you think through
(36:42):
problems, you uh you pushthrough, you grind, you solve
it, you learn, etc.
And if you're outsourcing thatactivity to uh Chat GPT prompt,
um you're not gonna get smarter.
And if you think about,especially as a young person,
right, if you think about thecompetitive landscape that we're
in, right, to differentiateyourself, you know, retain the
(37:05):
ability to problem solve, tothink strategically, absent the
use of AI, right?
Learn how to buildrelationships, learn how to work
as a team because the thenon-replaceable skills are the
ones that are gonna keep you orget you employed in the areas
that you want to be employed inthe work that you want to do.
Because if it's replaceable, ifit's pattern recognition,
(37:28):
programming data, etc., AI isjust gonna chip away and and
take away more and more of that.
So I continue to be impressedwith what I see.
Um I I love that I get toresearch the space.
I love that First Trust isdoing this and and and getting
this type of information out tofinancial professionals and
teams all across the country.
Um it's it's invaluable fromour perspective, and so we're
(37:51):
happy to be doing it.
Ryan (37:52):
I I think that's a really good caution because you even
see that already with theability of people to communicate
with the advent of textmessaging, for example, or you
know, just the interpersonalskills, I think there's some
muscle development that has tohappen there.
And if you, you know, I hate tobe the old, the old man kind of
(38:14):
you know yelling at the youngergeneration, but the
interpersonal skills for forsome that spend too much time
looking down on their phone andtexting people when there happen
to be other people, you know,right across the table or
something like that, you know, II just think that that uh
development, that muscle memoryhasn't yet been established for
(38:35):
some people.
And so I think it's it'sdefinitely a good idea to not
let your problem-solving uhmuscles atrophy because you're
too overly reliant on some ofthese tools.
I think that's a that's areally great point.
Kevin (38:48):
Yeah, I I had a uh financial professional tell me
um that he had this backfire onhim because uh for his wife's
birthday, he decided he he hequote was going to write a poem
for his wife.
Well, he used AI to do it, andshe sniffed it out.
And she was she was not happy.
She's like, you mean youcouldn't even sit down for 10
(39:10):
minutes and think aboutsomething you know thoughtful
and meaningful to write as abirthday message?
And I to me that was a a veryvivid cautionary tale to say,
hey, you know, be be bediligent, you know, be careful
about how you use thesecapabilities because you never
want to be perceived asinauthentic in in any aspect of
your life, right?
(39:31):
Business uh between you andclients, between you and team
members, between you and youryour spouse, your kids, your
your family, et cetera.
Um and so the these tools kindof have have turned faces to
screens more and more, and sofighting the urge to do that is
important, especially especiallyfor younger people.
Ryan (39:51):
Yeah.
All right, Kevin, uh I I reallyappreciate you spending some
time with us on the podcast.
Love to do it again at somepoint in the future.
But my final question,especially for those that have
been a first-time guest on thepodcast, is just more general.
You can relate it to AI if youwant to, or the financial
(40:11):
services industry that you'veworked in for three decades.
But what are you reading thesedays?
Any any book recommendationsthat I should consider or
viewers or listeners of thepodcast?
Kevin (40:22):
Yeah, so for those of you who who want an
industry-focused book, we have agreat book called The Advisor
Playbook.
It is on how to build aprocess-driven financial
advisory practice.
Easy read.
Your first trust wholesaler canget you a digital copy of that
book.
We have teams who, when we goand see them, that thing is
(40:45):
highlighted, you know,dog-eared, all over the place,
sticky notes, etc.
It's it has become a coremanual for them in terms of how
they're organizing theirbusiness.
Two books that I really like.
One is going to be very commonto most people.
I love the book Atomic Habitsby James Clear.
That's all about kind ofreformulating your brain to
(41:05):
think about improvement efforts,not as heroic, monumental, you
know, paradigm change efforts,but more how do we get 1% better
every day?
If we just continue to improveon the margin every single day
and we execute, then when youlook back over longer periods of
(41:26):
time, you're going to beshocked with how many things
you've changed.
And it's just, it's it's justthe accumulation of all of those
small incremental changes thatadds up to significant progress.
One of my favorite books,right, is a book called Legacy
by James Kerr.
It's the best kind ofleadership team-building book
(41:48):
that I've ever read.
And it's told through the lensof the New Zealand rugby team.
The New Zealand rugby team,they're called the All Blacks,
and most everybody has seenthem.
They just don't necessarilyknow that it's them.
It's the rugby team that goesout to midfield before the game.
They all line up and they dothat very aggressive chant.
(42:10):
Right?
They get those mean looks ontheir faces and they're chanting
the haka at their opponents.
The book is all about how theybuilt the culture of that team,
how they built it over the yearsand turned it into the most
successful rugby, you know,national team franchise in the
history of the sport.
It's a program, a lifetime-long87% win rate, which is
(42:37):
astounding in rugby andinternational competition.
And the book just does a greatjob of not just taking you
through principles, but butsharing stories of how they
implemented those principles andthen giving you kind of a token
version to say, you know, boilit down to what does it mean to
play for the jersey?
(42:57):
What does it mean when thecaptains of the team are the
ones that are sweeping thelocker room before they leave in
a way match?
Not the grunts that are doingthat, the captains.
Like they're setting the tone.
That's a fantastic read.
Again, it's called Legacy byJames Kerr.
So there's there's threerecommendations for the
audience.
Ryan (43:16):
All right, very good.
Um, that was the two of thoseI've uh read personally, but the
last one I have not.
So thank you for all threerecommendations.
Kevin, it's been fun.
Appreciate you uh taking thetime for us to be on the
podcast.
And thanks to all of you aswell for joining us on this
episode of the First Trust RMYpodcast.
We will see you next time.
Well, it's been about three years since artificial
intelligence has come on thescene.
Since then, it's really beenguiding the narrative in the
economy, in the financialmarkets.
Many white-collar employees areworried about disruption, how
that will impact their job two,three years down the road or 10
years down the road.
That's no exception when itcomes to the financial services
(00:40):
industry.
And to help think through howthis might impact financial
advisors in the years ahead andhow it's already impacting our
industry.
Today I'm joined by KevinBishop.
Kevin is a performance coachand national speaker at First
Trust with about three decadesworth of experience in the
industry.
Most of that, again, has beenfocused on helping financial
(01:02):
professionals be moreproductive, be more efficient.
I'm really looking forward tothis conversation with Kevin.
Thanks for joining us on thisepisode of the First Trust ROI
podcast.
You've been around for a while.
I think I was looking at yourbio and it said that you 30
years, but there's no way you'reold enough to have been in the
(01:23):
industry for 30 years.
I mean, you're a springchicken, Kevin.
Kevin (01:27):
Yeah, well, so I I got my first job in nine in 96.
So next next year it'll be 30years.
That's crazy.
Ryan (01:35):
Um okay, so over the past 30 years, uh, what would you, as
you kind of retrospectivelylook back, what do you think the
biggest change has beencompared to 30 years ago,
looking at where we are today?
Kevin (01:51):
So in the financial services space, the number one
answer from my perspective iscomplexity.
It is massively morecomplicated.
There are far more products,there are more complex and
volatile markets.
We've got higher regulatorystandards for financial
professionals and teams allacross the country.
That's that's not going away.
(02:12):
Um you've got clients who nowhave access to more information,
uh more data, which uh promptstheir inquiries to their
financial advisors saying, hey,what are we thinking about on
this topic, on that topic?
Uh so those clients want moreservice advice and planning.
Uh and and the technology inour industry just continues to
(02:34):
adapt.
I I remember a time where um wegot this really cool thing
called email, uh, and and it wasawesome because you could
actually just send an electronicmessage to a colleague.
And it was it was internal andit was clunky, but but it it
ratcheted up the level ofefficiency in the in the role
that I was in.
And you look at where we're attoday, uh it's it's entirely
(02:58):
different.
I mean, when I when I startedin the industry, we were just
moving away from dial upinternet, right?
I remember prodigy and dial upinternet, and today everything
is 5G on your phone in yourpocket, iPads, tablets,
docu-sign, you name it.
So um it's it's morecomplicated and it's moving at a
(03:19):
faster pace.
When I'm in front of a largeaudience, oftentimes I'll say,
Okay, how who in the audiencehas been in the business 25 or
30 years?
A number of hands go up, and Isay, Okay, can you tell me which
year it got easier?
And and every time theychuckle, they laugh because they
know every single year it'sit's moving at a faster pace
with a higher level ofcomplexity.
(03:41):
And when you when you couplethat with the advisors who have
had success, they've grown theirbusinesses, they have more
clients, that just puts evenmore demands on their time.
And so they are under even morecapacity pressure today than
ever before.
Ryan (03:58):
It's it is crazy to think back just how much has changed
in.
I mean you mentioned email, andI was just thinking like my
first, I don't think I had anemail address that I used until
maybe 1999.
I mean, I maybe I had one, butyou know, if you have an email
address and nobody to email, youknow, you just don't do
(04:22):
anything with it.
Kevin (04:23):
Um I re I remember my first my first legitimate email
address was when I was afreshman at the University of
Washington.
Ryan (04:30):
Yeah.
Kevin (04:30):
And I got a a Washington.edu email address,
and and I I didn't know what todo with it at first.
Ryan (04:37):
Yeah.
Kevin (04:38):
Um so you know, we're that's 34 years ago.
We've come a long way in arelatively short amount of time.
Ryan (04:46):
Yeah.
It's uh it's and and most ofthose changes in retrospect, I
mean, it's there's there's nodenying that email makes it
easier to stay in touch withpeople and communicate with
people, and that all theinformation at your fingertips
on your on your cell phone givesyou more information, more
access to information.
It means you have to interpreta lot more information and you
(05:07):
know you have a lot morequestions and a lot more um
different viewpoints on theanswers to those questions.
So I think the complexity, notjust in our industry, but in
society in general, um, hasmaybe increased over that time
period.
Kevin (05:22):
Oh, absolutely.
And you have companies now thatare they are competing for your
attention.
Because their their model is isadvertising clicks.
And if they can they can drawyou in, whether it's with a link
in an email, whether it's apop-up ad in your browser,
something inside of an app,right?
Every time you get lured awayand you click and you go down
(05:44):
that track, that's that'srevenue for a lot of these
companies.
So they're competing for yourtime and attention.
So you know, we as consumers,regardless of or as business
owners, whatever industry you'rein, right, it it's an
onslaught, right?
And so one of the things thatum that I share with teams is
you know, you have to be highlyintentional.
(06:05):
If you're gonna manage yourcapacity as a business, and in
this case a financialprofessional, um, you have to be
willing to say no to a numberof activities, right?
We we we can't do everything,we can't have everybody as
clients.
Um we we uh we certainly needto limit the the amount of
intake of information becauseyou've got wholesalers and
(06:27):
different asset management firmsknocking on your door, calling,
sending emails.
Um so the best teams that wework with have become
increasingly protective of theirtime because that's their most
precious resource.
The time that they have tospend with their clients as a
team to build their business.
Um that is for for virtuallyall of them their biggest
(06:51):
financial asset as well.
And so they I don't want to saythey go into protectionist
mode, but they're very, verydiligent about making sure that
they're spending the right, theright amount of time on the
right activities with the rightclients.
And that's that's a hallmark ofsuccess for the best uh teams
that we work with across thecountry.
Ryan (07:13):
So I think all of these technologies that we've been
talking about are are inherentlydisruptive.
If you look back, you know howthey were disruptive, and you
kind of know who the winners andlosers and the benefits, the
puts, the takes.
Um one that we don't know theanswer to yet, and this is uh
largely why I wanted to have youon the podcast, is artificial
(07:33):
intelligence.
And you know, you and I had theopportunity to speak at the
same uh event um a few weeksago, maybe a month ago.
Um, and I I got to listen toyour take on how AI is going to
impact the financial servicesbusiness.
And you hear a lot aboutwhite-collar professionals being
disrupted, and you know, youyou don't really know what to do
(07:56):
with that, I think, as afinancial professional and as a
professional in anotherindustry, you know, because we
don't know how you're going tobe impacted.
We don't really know the fullpotential of these technologies,
we don't know what AI is goingto be very good at a few years
from now, that maybe it's not asgood at today.
Um so I wanted you to share alittle bit on your perspective
(08:20):
of you know how is this going tobe disruptive?
And at this point, do you thinkwho should be afraid and and
who shouldn't be afraid that AIis going to displace them or
take their jobs?
Kevin (08:33):
Yeah.
So that that is the number onequestion that I get from
financial professionals andteams is hey, are are our jobs
at risk as financial advisors asa result of AI?
And there's a two-part answerto that question.
The actually it's a three-partanswer.
The first part is no, your jobtoday is not at risk unless your
(08:56):
business is commoditized.
Meaning, if all you're doing isbuilding portfolios, some basic
planning, addressing clients'immediate needs, you know, get
them into a 529 plan, talk tothem about some insurance.
Um, if if you're operating atthe commodity level, which is
immediate needs for clients, yourun a higher risk of being
(09:18):
displaced by AI because that'sthe first place that AI is going
to go.
Because it's the least complexof the work that you do as a
financial professional.
So if you if you want to if youwant to decommoditize yourself,
you move away from immediateproblem solving of basic needs
for clients, and then you startto talk about goals.
(09:39):
When do you want to retire?
How do you want to fund kids'college education?
What do you want to have happenif uh if one of you predeceases
the other, what happens in thein the form of disability?
These become more complexquestions.
These uh start to require somemore calculations, some more
math, but also requires you totruly understand what clients
(10:01):
care about, what they'repassionate about, how they're
feeling about on certain topics.
And so that's the next stepaway from commoditization is to
start talking about a client'sgoals.
That's going to be the nextplace that AI tries to go.
It's going to try to work upthis chain of what we call
modern value, but it's going totake time.
So layer one of modern value iscommoditized, basic needs.
(10:23):
That's where AI will chip awayfirst.
Second tier would be criticalgoals for clients.
Uh, third tier, and this iswhere you start to get further
away from what AI will be ableto do, or said another way, it
will take it much longer to getto this space, is you engage
clients in a conversationaround, hey, what does it really
mean to feel financiallysecure?
What gives you peace of mind?
(10:44):
Now you start talking about howassets are custodied,
transition of wealth to nextgeneration, you start talking
about taking care of agingparents, um, long-term care
insurance, all these sorts ofthings so that you get to a
place with clients where theyknow my my team helps me with
wherever life and wealthintersect, or excuse me, yeah,
(11:07):
wherever life and wealthintersect.
My advisor is there for me.
And they've put solutions inplace, plans in place, a client
experience model where if we dothese things, we we're confident
that we're gonna be okay.
We're gonna have what we needfor retirement, we're gonna be
able to protect those savings,we're gonna be able to pay for
kids' college to the degree thatwe want to, weddings, etc.
(11:30):
That's that's tier numberthree, would be financial
security, financial freedom.
And then tier number four isall about helping them build a
legacy.
When you have a conversationwith a client around, hey, what
type of legacy do you want toleave behind?
You are you are at a placewhere you're in a position to
add unique value.
It's as far away fromcommoditization as you can be in
(11:54):
our industry, and it's also theplace where you can command
premium pricing, or said anotherway, you are the most
fee-worthy in terms of whatyou're delivering to a client.
So part one of the answer toyour question is AI is not going
to replace the advisor unlessthey're stuck in that
commoditized zone of onlydealing with immediate needs.
(12:15):
Yeah.
Second, the second piece ofthat is the caveat that says,
now you you might be operatingabove that commoditized zone and
talking to clients aboutlegacy, but you might actually
run the risk of being displacednot by directly by AI, but by
another advisor or team or firmthat's using AI to enhance their
(12:39):
capabilities, to go deeper withplanning, better understanding
of clients, build betterportfolios, better client
experience, more content, moreeducation they're making
available.
So you you get to a place wherenow it's it's not a direct
threat from AI, but it's acompetitive risk from other
(12:59):
teams that are that are using AIto their advantage.
Ryan (13:02):
Yeah, that's uh that's a very good point.
And actually, that makes me uhkind of wonder about where we
are today with respect to AI andits impact and the tools that
are being used already byfinancial professionals in
achieving some of the uhobjectives that you just kind of
(13:23):
laid out for us.
Um, you know, the things thatthat help them add unique value.
So you talked to a lot offinancial advisors, you're kind
of much more keyed in on thisthan I am.
Uh, where are you seeing AIalready have an impact on some
of those financial advisors,especially in areas that maybe
those that haven't embraced AIshould be aware of because it is
(13:46):
a competitive threat?
Kevin (13:47):
Yeah.
Hands down, the number onecapability that advisors are
benefiting from and that largerfirms are are putting in place
is the ability to have AI sitsidecar in conversations and to
be able to transcribe andsummarize the conversation and
deliver it back to the financialadvisor or team.
(14:10):
These would be tools like Jumpor Zox or maybe your Zoom note
taker or your Team's AI notetaker.
That capability advisors aretelling us that that capability
is giving them hours back perweek.
And the more innovative uhtools in that space, they don't
(14:31):
just transcribe and deliver ameeting summary.
They allow you to customize theorder in which you want that
summary to come back to you.
So you can you can talk with aclient about any number of
topics in whatever order it canflow naturally, and then when
you get back your summary thatAI has delivered, right, you can
you can create a template sothat it always comes back to you
(14:52):
in the same order.
You know, we caught up ongoals, on life, then we talked
about taxable accounts andqualified accounts, we talked
about insurance, and and it willtake the kind of the jumbled
conversation that you've hadwith the client, deliver the
summary back in that order.
It will call out any to-doitems that were agreed upon, and
the more innovative tools willthen build tasks for the team's
(15:15):
CRM, could be Salesforce, couldbe Wealth Box, Red Tail, right?
It'll it'll can pre-constructthe tasks for the team.
It will even draft a potentialfollow-up email to go out to the
client.
Now, if you think about that asbeing the new paradigm that
we're operating in, what have wetaken away from the advisor?
(15:38):
We've taken away note-taking.
We've taken away havingsomebody else in the meeting to
take notes.
We've taken away the 15 to 30to 60 minutes post-meeting to
read those notes, organize thosenotes, dictate them, copy,
talk, drag in into your PC,review them, you know,
distribute them, then buildtasks, and then you still have
(16:00):
to get on the keyboard and starttyping an email.
Hey, Bill and Sue, great to seeyou today, et cetera, et
cetera.
All of that is gone.
Now we're at a point where it'sthe summary is delivered, the
tasks are pre-built, the emailis pre-drafted.
I just need to go in and reviewthat, make a few modifications,
and and send those thingsalong.
That that is the number onecapability that we're seeing
(16:24):
advisors get the mostproductivity lift from is that
AI sitting sidecar, transcribingmeetings, and then getting
involved in the follow-upactivities.
Second big thing that we areseeing at firms, and this is for
larger firms, wirehouses,bigger independents, is they're
taking all of their back officeoperational processes, all of
(16:47):
the intel in all theirprocedures manuals, and they're
loading that into an AI model.
And they're they're creatingtheir own chatbots behind the
scenes, they're creating theirown GPT so that if uh a
financial professional or theirsupport staff have a question,
they don't have to go searchingfor answers.
They could just say, What formsdo I need to open up a 529 plan
(17:10):
in the state of Virginia?
Boom.
Right?
And and it just automaticallywill start returning the
information that's needed on theforms, the process, etc.
So they're they've taken all ofthis library of information,
process, procedures, all ofthat, and and turned it into
something that's on demand justvia uh uh chat box.
(17:35):
Okay.
Um where they're going with thatis is some firms are already
starting to dabble with all oftheir investment Intel, all of
their uh information onfinancial markets, products,
behind the scenes, putting thatat everybody's fingertips as
well in in the same fashion.
Um third biggest thing that wesee advisors benefiting from is
the use of Chat GPT, co-pilot,um, your your your more
(17:59):
traditional generative AI.
They're using that foreverything from helping with
drafting of simple emails allthe way through to uh scripting
for podcasts, scripting forvideo, writing articles, writing
white papers, um the thegenerative AI, the the
(18:20):
co-pilots, the GPTs uh if yougive them great prompts, you
will be blown away at the draftof output that you can get back
from them.
And um it's all of that justadds up to more productivity for
financial professionals andteams.
Ryan (18:37):
I was listening to your um the the first uh section of of
what you just laid out for usabout note-taking, kind of
verbally recording and takingnotes and having follow-up, and
I remember just a couple yearsago, uh maybe it was a year and
a half ago, I was in, I wastraveling with um one of our
(19:02):
salespeople in South America,and we were talking to a I
believe it was a pension fund,and they were Spanish speaking.
And the person that we werespeaking with was English
speaking, and you know, I I havea little bit of high school
Spanish, but it's not uhanything that is uh quality,
high quality enough to be ableto communicate with somebody in
(19:23):
in financial terms.
But we had this meeting, andbefore that they asked if they
could record it, and we said,sure, go ahead.
And they had an output that notonly did all the things that
you were saying, but it alsotranslated it from English into
Spanish and provided those notesso they could then distribute
it to their team.
And I thought, man, this isjust this is a game changer.
(19:46):
Um, the the ability to actuallycommunicate even across
different languages.
It's it's really good.
Kevin (19:53):
Yeah, so I I I have a similar story, right?
I I was asked to speak at aconference in Texas uh by one of
our larger partners.
And they were the first, theywere the first firm to ever make
this ask.
They said, could you record a90-second promo video for your
session so that when our teamsare looking at the conference
agenda, they can click on thedifferent uh previews for all
(20:16):
these different sessions, andthey can not only learn what
it's about, but they can seeyour speaking style, a little
bit more about you, etc.
And I thought, well, that's agreat idea.
So I I jumped on a platformjust like what we're using
today.
I recorded a video, I sent itto Steve Nelson, one of one of
the guys who's critical at FirstTrust in video production and
(20:37):
all things marketing.
I said, Hey, can we put abumper on this on the front end,
on the back end, polish it up alittle bit?
He said, Great, I can do it.
And then maybe 10 minuteslater, 15 minutes later, I get a
link, I get an email back fromhim, and it says, Hey, I just it
says, I just doubled youraudience, dot dot dot.
And I thought, well, what couldhe have done to my little promo
(20:58):
video to double the number ofpeople that are come to my
session, come to my session?
And so I I opened the videothat he sent back, and it was my
promo in Spanish.
My face, my mouth moving,appearing like I was speaking
Spanish.
I knew that that AI could dosome cool stuff from a video
(21:19):
perspective.
Uh I had no idea that it thatit was that simple or that
though that those tools existed.
Now there's there's a wholenother more nefarious side of
that with the deepfakes and andall that kind of stuff.
But um I mean the capabilitiesare are astounding.
And the application of of a lotof this uh AI in terms of
(21:44):
modeling, crunching numbers,data has tremendous application
for process development, forbusiness uh efficiencies, for
better logistics, inventorymanagement.
Um it'll it'll continue torevolutionize the biotech
industry because uh a lot of thetesting that we do will be
replaced with AI simulations.
(22:06):
And so it's it's gonna continueto transform uh virtually all
areas of our lives.
And and for some people thatthat can be exciting, for some
people that makes them morenervous.
Um but but we're all gonna havethe opportunity to experience
what that looks like in thecoming years.
Ryan (22:26):
Yeah, and I think that also begs the question on
reliability, because I I had asimilar experience uh one of our
podcasts, we actually had mespeaking in Japanese, which was
um which was really interesting,but we ended up not releasing
the podcast in Japanese becausethere was some errors in the
(22:48):
translation and it just wasn'thigh quality enough.
And the same is even true, Ithink, with some of the output
that financial advisors mighthave from those meetings.
Um and and is that the case inyour experience?
I mean, how important is it tokind of check the work that
these chatbots and um you knowthe different AI applications
are what check their output?
Kevin (23:10):
Yeah, so it's it's paramount that if you're gonna
use AI for any generativeactivity, you're gonna generate
uh written content, you're gonnagenerate a video, you're gonna
generate a script.
Uh, you have to go back andreview that for accuracy.
Right?
And the reason that you need todo that is because in the event
that a financial professionalor team is audited, whether it's
(23:32):
FINRA, whether it's the SEC,let's say they come back in and
they say, hey, this particularmarketing piece that you
prepared and sent out has someinaccuracies, you can't format
data this way, that way, etc.,it will not be a sufficient
defense to say, well, that'swhat ChatGPT gave me.
Right?
That's that's not gonna holdany water.
So it's it's on you to verifyit for accuracy.
(23:56):
But even beyond that, um, it'svery, very important that
whatever you send to a client,right, if you pull it out of AI
and directly try to pass it offas yours, you will be perceived
as inauthentic.
And that will happen very, veryquickly because your clients
know you.
They know your voice, they knowhow you talk, you've sent them
(24:18):
a variety of emails, you mayhave language on your website or
content that you've written.
And so they've established intheir mind their perception of,
hey, when I interact with Ryan,my advisor, I I know it's him
because of the way that he talksand what I get from him and the
tone of his emails, etc.
If you're just taking stuffstraight out of AI and purposing
it as your as your own, even ifyou source it, it you run the
(24:42):
risk of being perceived asinauthentic.
And if clients start to sensethat, hey, I'm I'm getting
things from my advisor that seemlike they're just boilerplate
stuff that I could get out ofAI, they're going to begin to
question and wonder now, why arewe paying the fees that we're
paying if if I can get this typeof information with a good
prompt into ChatGPT or Copilot,et cetera.
(25:06):
So you have to take enoughtime, put enough energy and
creativity into refining whatyou get out of AI to make sure
that your voice is heard withinthat particular output.
Ryan (25:21):
Yeah, and that's I've noticed that I don't know if if
uh those that have iPhones haveused this tool at all, but AI on
your iPhone will now,responding to a text, make a
suggestion.
And I have not once, never everused that suggestion because it
doesn't sound authentic at all.
(25:41):
It's some I don't know who itsounds like, uh, but it
certainly doesn't sound like me.
Um and I'm uh it just seemslike one of, I mean, no offense
to Apple, but one of the mostuseless AI applications I've
seen so far is the uh theresponse that I would give in a
text.
I mean, I've just never usedit.
Kevin (26:00):
So what is likely to happen, right, or the natural
evolution of AI in that spacewill be in the future, there'll
be enough bandwidth, there'll beenough horsepower so that AI
will have been paying attentionto previous text responses that
you have written, and it will goin and refine and optimize its
recommendations.
And the only reason that I saythat is because that's now
(26:23):
happening with ChatGPT Copilotand a lot of the generative AI.
For example, if I if I promptChatGPT to create something for
me, it will it will inherentlydo a couple of things that it
didn't used to do.
The newer version of ChatGPTwill act as its own prompt
engineer.
And it will say, hey, here'swhat I here's what I'm giving
(26:45):
you based upon your prompt.
But if you modified yourinstruction in this way, then I
think you will get better outputand what you're actually
looking for.
So it's it's running its ownprompt engineering.
It's basically saying, hey, yougave me some instructions, but
they're not very goodinstructions because based upon
how I've been trained and andand the way that other people
(27:05):
are looking for the sameinformation, I think I can get
you what you really want if wemodify the instruction that
you've given me.
Now just think about that for aminute.
It's engineering your requestand optimizing it.
Not it's not only giving youback what you asked for
technically, but it's saying,hey, we can actually make this
(27:26):
better.
And then it will even saythings like, hey, and because
you're a for me, because you'rea consultant for financial
advisors and teams, have youthought about presenting it this
way in the form of a you know aMcKenzie layout or a Boston
consulting layout on thisparticular slide?
Like it's it's taking what itknows about me and it's taking
(27:47):
my my basic prompt, trying toenhance that, and even figuring
out how it relates to the typeof work that I'm doing.
So that type of capability isjust going to continue to be
enhanced in a variety of forms.
Ryan (28:04):
Yeah, that that's that makes a ton of sense.
I think the one of the biggestchallenges to using some of
these um ChatGPT or all theother variations and platforms
is understanding how to promptit in such a way that it gives
you the output that you reallywant.
And it seems like it's alearning process to figure that
(28:26):
out.
But anything they can do toaccelerate that to understand,
you know, that this is aniterative process where you get
some output and you say, well,this was good, but I want it
with a different tone of voice,or I want it optimized for a
certain type of consumer or acertain type of um of one of the
(28:47):
things that you pointed out inthe speech that I heard you give
was um optimize for searchresults, if it's a blog or
something like that.
I mean, I hadn't even thoughtabout that before.
So I think the ability of theseplatforms to actually help
consumers understand how toprompt them is going to be
something that could be uh areally maybe even a game changer
(29:09):
in terms of helping peopleadopt them in a better way.
Kevin (29:12):
Yeah, we we attack that in our five-part series that we
have on AI.
It's called Unlocking the Powerof AI.
And one of the things that weclearly spell out is when you
prompt, put three differentcomponents into your prompt.
Tell ChatGPT, your co-pilot,the the role that you want it to
play.
Think like a business owner,think like a financial
(29:34):
professional, think like anarchitect, think like an
entrepreneur, think like asoftware business owner.
Give it the role that you wantit to play, then give it the
goal.
That's the output that youwant.
Write me an email, draft me ablog post, right?
Give it the goal that you want,and the more color that you put
with that the better.
And then the third component isthe soul.
(29:55):
And the soul is the emotiveside or the preference side.
I want it, you know, a thousandwords, I want it written to,
you know, uh MBA level audience,um, or I want it more casual,
etc.
When you put those threecomponents at a minimum into
your prompt, you will get betteroutput.
So it's the role that you wantChatGPT to play, how you want it
(30:18):
to think, the goal is theoutput that you want, and then
the soul is the emotive side.
If you ask Chat GPT for all theingredients for a great prompt,
it's gonna give you eightdifferent components.
That's too many for the vastmajority of us.
So that's why we default backto starting with those three
role, goal, and soul.
And the more detail you can putinto your prompt, the more
(30:41):
specific you can be, the betteroutput you will get from these
tools.
Ryan (30:47):
So your team puts out a lot of content, and I know the
AI uh part of that content hasbeen very well received.
Uh, for those that areinterested in receiving some of
that content, is the best way tomaybe understand or get a hold
of that just to talk to theirfirst trust uh wholesaler?
(31:08):
Or how do they typically findthat?
Kevin (31:11):
Yeah, so the the easy button for the financial
professional is just to reachout to your first trust
wholesaler, either the internalwholesaler or the external
wholesaler.
Say, hey, I sat in on the ROIpodcast with Ryan and Kevin.
They talked about some AIresources that First Trust has
for financial advisors.
And if they even want to getmore specific, they could say,
you know, there's a five-partwebinar series, can I get
(31:33):
access?
And we can send them the flyer.
We have the same information ina 55-page white paper, which is
long.
Uh it's great white paper, alot of information.
Uh it's got a glossary of AItools in the back of what we've
seen teams using.
It's got 17 different ways thatfinancial professionals are
(31:54):
currently leveraging AI.
What I've been encouragingpeople to do is to get that
white paper and then throw itinto Chat GPT and say, give me a
bullet point summary of thewhite paper.
And I do that, I do that fortwo reasons.
One is I want to make it kindof more accessible, easier for
them to use because 55-page PDFis a lot to read.
(32:15):
But I also want them to startto dabble and see the
capabilities that exist with theAI that's already at their
fingertips.
Ryan (32:23):
It's really, it's really interesting because you could go
either way with AI.
You could have this list of uhan outline or a summary and say,
write me a 55-page white paper,and it would it would do that
to some degree.
Or you can take the 55-pagewhite paper and you say, boil
this down, do an outline andsome bullet points, and it can
(32:43):
go that way as well.
So it's it's uh it is aninteresting um, you know, just a
variety of ways that thistechnology can be used.
Kevin (32:50):
It's um so there's there's a couple other things I
love to share with um withaudiences.
One is you know, if you thinkabout the demographics of our
industry, the financial servicesindustry, average age of a
financial professional somewherein the neighborhood of 57, 58
years old.
Um we're in an older industryat the senior level, and one of
(33:13):
the realities that we battle isthat technology adoption rates
are inversely correlated to age.
That's a fancy way of sayingthat older people have a harder
time adopting new technologies.
So my encouragement toeverybody is hey, if if you find
yourself um you know pokingaround and looking at AI to
(33:33):
whatever degree you're doingthat today, just do 20 more
minutes of that per week.
Just commit uh an incrementalamount of time to paying
attention, to doing somereading, to start playing around
with the tools because it'sit's not going away.
Every firm on the street istrying to figure out how to use
AI to get faster, moreefficient.
(33:53):
Uh, you're seeing significantamounts of layoffs at large
firms, largely in part to theefficiencies that they're
getting behind the walls withartificial intelligence.
So commit some more time to it.
And in terms of the thecapabilities that exist, I'll
I'll try to share just a quickpersonal story because it was
(34:15):
enlightening to me in terms ofwhat AI can do.
Uh I've got three children.
My youngest, he's a20-year-old, he's in his junior
year of college, finance andecon major.
And when he was a freshman, sothis is now a couple years ago,
I was curious.
You know, he he he moves awayto college, he's on his own,
(34:35):
he's out of the nest, he's goingto class.
Um I said, hey buddy, I'm I'mdoing some research on AI for
work.
I'm just curious, as a as afreshman college student, like
what role is AI playing in yourlearning?
And I was I was trying to do itfor two reasons.
One, I wanted to find out if hewas using it to write his
papers and do his homework forhim.
(34:55):
Or and second, I wanted tofigure out you know what
capabilities exist.
And his answer blew me away.
He said, Dad, there is not asingle assignment that I work on
where I'm not using AI in someform.
Meaning it's getting meinformation, it's gathering
data, it's summarizing researchthat I need to read, it's
(35:18):
reformatting data that I foundon a source because I need it in
a different format.
Um, it's it's reviewingsomething that I've written and
helping me tweak it.
Um, it's checking for accuracythe accounting homework that
I've done.
Um or I took notes in an econlecture and I didn't really
(35:39):
understand what the professorwas saying, so I asked AI to
explain it to me a differentway.
I mean, every single thing thathe's working on today, uh he's
he's touching AI in some form.
I mean, if you go into acollege classroom, you'll see
kids, they've all got theirlaptop open and there's some
form of AI note-taker sittingsidecar because those things not
(36:00):
only take notes, but they'llprepare flashcards, they'll do
practice exams.
I mean, it it has infiltratededucation in an amazing way.
And that's just going tocontinue to evolve.
Um, but with that comes somerisk, right?
And the risk is for youngerpeople over-reliance on AI.
And this is actually foranybody, over-reliance on AI for
(36:22):
activities and tasks that areproblem-solving or creative
tasks.
The research that come that'scoming out is saying uh you run
the risk of material cognitivedecline if you over-rely on AI
in those areas, because yourbrain is a muscle.
The way that your your braingets stronger, you think through
(36:42):
problems, you uh you pushthrough, you grind, you solve
it, you learn, etc.
And if you're outsourcing thatactivity to uh Chat GPT prompt,
um you're not gonna get smarter.
And if you think about,especially as a young person,
right, if you think about thecompetitive landscape that we're
in, right, to differentiateyourself, you know, retain the
(37:05):
ability to problem solve, tothink strategically, absent the
use of AI, right?
Learn how to buildrelationships, learn how to work
as a team because the thenon-replaceable skills are the
ones that are gonna keep you orget you employed in the areas
that you want to be employed inthe work that you want to do.
Because if it's replaceable, ifit's pattern recognition,
(37:28):
programming data, etc., AI isjust gonna chip away and and
take away more and more of that.
So I continue to be impressedwith what I see.
Um I I love that I get toresearch the space.
I love that First Trust isdoing this and and and getting
this type of information out tofinancial professionals and
teams all across the country.
Um it's it's invaluable fromour perspective, and so we're
(37:51):
happy to be doing it.
Ryan (37:52):
I I think that's a really good caution because you even
see that already with theability of people to communicate
with the advent of textmessaging, for example, or you
know, just the interpersonalskills, I think there's some
muscle development that has tohappen there.
And if you, you know, I hate tobe the old, the old man kind of
(38:14):
you know yelling at the youngergeneration, but the
interpersonal skills for forsome that spend too much time
looking down on their phone andtexting people when there happen
to be other people, you know,right across the table or
something like that, you know, II just think that that uh
development, that muscle memoryhasn't yet been established for
(38:35):
some people.
And so I think it's it'sdefinitely a good idea to not
let your problem-solving uhmuscles atrophy because you're
too overly reliant on some ofthese tools.
I think that's a that's areally great point.
Kevin (38:48):
Yeah, I I had a uh financial professional tell me
um that he had this backfire onhim because uh for his wife's
birthday, he decided he he hequote was going to write a poem
for his wife.
Well, he used AI to do it, andshe sniffed it out.
And she was she was not happy.
She's like, you mean youcouldn't even sit down for 10
(39:10):
minutes and think aboutsomething you know thoughtful
and meaningful to write as abirthday message?
And I to me that was a a veryvivid cautionary tale to say,
hey, you know, be be bediligent, you know, be careful
about how you use thesecapabilities because you never
want to be perceived asinauthentic in in any aspect of
your life, right?
(39:31):
Business uh between you andclients, between you and team
members, between you and youryour spouse, your kids, your
your family, et cetera.
Um and so the these tools kindof have have turned faces to
screens more and more, and sofighting the urge to do that is
important, especially especiallyfor younger people.
Ryan (39:51):
Yeah.
All right, Kevin, uh I I reallyappreciate you spending some
time with us on the podcast.
Love to do it again at somepoint in the future.
But my final question,especially for those that have
been a first-time guest on thepodcast, is just more general.
You can relate it to AI if youwant to, or the financial
(40:11):
services industry that you'veworked in for three decades.
But what are you reading thesedays?
Any any book recommendationsthat I should consider or
viewers or listeners of thepodcast?
Kevin (40:22):
Yeah, so for those of you who who want an
industry-focused book, we have agreat book called The Advisor
Playbook.
It is on how to build aprocess-driven financial
advisory practice.
Easy read.
Your first trust wholesaler canget you a digital copy of that
book.
We have teams who, when we goand see them, that thing is
(40:45):
highlighted, you know,dog-eared, all over the place,
sticky notes, etc.
It's it has become a coremanual for them in terms of how
they're organizing theirbusiness.
Two books that I really like.
One is going to be very commonto most people.
I love the book Atomic Habitsby James Clear.
That's all about kind ofreformulating your brain to
(41:05):
think about improvement efforts,not as heroic, monumental, you
know, paradigm change efforts,but more how do we get 1% better
every day?
If we just continue to improveon the margin every single day
and we execute, then when youlook back over longer periods of
(41:26):
time, you're going to beshocked with how many things
you've changed.
And it's just, it's it's justthe accumulation of all of those
small incremental changes thatadds up to significant progress.
One of my favorite books,right, is a book called Legacy
by James Kerr.
It's the best kind ofleadership team-building book
(41:48):
that I've ever read.
And it's told through the lensof the New Zealand rugby team.
The New Zealand rugby team,they're called the All Blacks,
and most everybody has seenthem.
They just don't necessarilyknow that it's them.
It's the rugby team that goesout to midfield before the game.
They all line up and they dothat very aggressive chant.
(42:10):
Right?
They get those mean looks ontheir faces and they're chanting
the haka at their opponents.
The book is all about how theybuilt the culture of that team,
how they built it over the yearsand turned it into the most
successful rugby, you know,national team franchise in the
history of the sport.
It's a program, a lifetime-long87% win rate, which is
(42:37):
astounding in rugby andinternational competition.
And the book just does a greatjob of not just taking you
through principles, but butsharing stories of how they
implemented those principles andthen giving you kind of a token
version to say, you know, boilit down to what does it mean to
play for the jersey?
(42:57):
What does it mean when thecaptains of the team are the
ones that are sweeping thelocker room before they leave in
a way match?
Not the grunts that are doingthat, the captains.
Like they're setting the tone.
That's a fantastic read.
Again, it's called Legacy byJames Kerr.
So there's there's threerecommendations for the
audience.
Ryan (43:16):
All right, very good.
Um, that was the two of thoseI've uh read personally, but the
last one I have not.
So thank you for all threerecommendations.
Kevin, it's been fun.
Appreciate you uh taking thetime for us to be on the
podcast.
And thanks to all of you aswell for joining us on this
episode of the First Trust RMYpodcast.
We will see you next time.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.