Zocks | AI for Advisors

📣 New Partnership! Learn about the new integration between Zocks | AI for Advisors + Wealthbox that improves client meeting efficiency. Learn more 👉 https://lnkd.in/gkgtcyu8

Zocks has been running with advisors for over 6 months now. Here are the biggest things we’ve learned: The most interesting part is to see what an advisor can *actually* do with structured data. Aside from the obvious use cases like meeting summarization, we’re starting to see some of our users come up with unique use cases we’ve never considered before. For instance, one firm uses Zocks to identify trends across their client base. This includes tracking how many of their clients are dealing with specific situations, such as new family members or job changes in the last year.. Before Zocks, this was only possible by manually combing through CRM notes or asking the client in a face-to-face meeting. But not just that – advisors are also able to find look-alikes and pattern matches within their client base. When a client faces a certain situation, they can automatically search through their other client data and spot similar cases. This allows them to get clarity on the best practices and solutions they’ve used in the past and therefore saves time – as they don’t have to talk to colleagues or comb through their CRM. As the industry continues to attract new people, coaching advisors are also emerging as a promising use case. When firms bring on junior advisors, they can access all information at a glance – without requiring senior staff to sit through all their meetings. These are just a few of the new use cases we’ve seen. I’m sure this is just the beginning and I am excited to see what our users come up with going forward! Can you think of another interesting use case? #ai #financialservices #finance #automation

What area of financial services has AI impacted the most? If you ask me – customer care and client management. Here’s why: Using AI, advisors can now identify every piece of information from conversations automatically. For instance, positive events like graduations usually trigger planning for future milestones, like purchasing homes or investing in further education. Advisors used to jot down these insights manually during the conversation. With AI, these insights can now be captured automatically. But not just that – they’re also automatically structured into a list, eliminating the need for manual processing. This is great for small firms as they can offer personalized and proactive service without a large headcount. They can automatically communicate with clients, offer resources, and create plans for various life events. Actions can range from simple gestures, like sending a housewarming gift, to addressing more complex situations such as relationship changes or illnesses. The best part? All of this happens automatically and doesn’t require extensive tracking and processing by the team. Using AI, small firms can now scale more reliably. And bigger firms can offer a better level of customer care, regardless of how big or small their team may be. What opportunities do you see for AI in financial services? #ai #financialservices #finance 

We are very excited to be recognized by Bain Capital Ventures and Headline in their 2024 Vertical SaaS 50 list. ThanksTaylor Brandt and Zeeza Cole! It is an impressive list of vertical startups transforming industries and we are honored to be a part of it.

The best financial advisors in the industry use AI to scale their client relationships. Here’s how they do it: First off, clients don’t just want occasional check-ins, they want: - proactive updates on their accounts,  - progress made quarterly or annually, - and responses to individual queries Using AI, firms can proactively send annual emails to people detailing exactly what’s going on and the progress made that month or year. And they can also respond to questions much quicker, because all the data is readily available at their fingertips. Advisors leveraging AI tech know exactly what their clients initial goals were, can recall all the concerns raised during the last meeting, and know what life events are coming up. Because they have all this data in their systems, they can quickly scan the personalized items for each client and send them out immediately. These efficiency gains allow financial advisors to scale reliably, even as they bring on new staff. But the best part – advisory firms of every size can now deliver a personal touch to their clients, regardless of how many households they manage. This level of service was previously only achievable by the highest-end family office firms. What other use cases do you see for AI in finance? #ai #finance #financialadvisor #realtimecommunication

Humans won’t be replaced by AI in the foreseeable future. Instead, we need to work closely with the AI systems. The reason? There are a lot of small subtleties in advanced professions (like financial services or insurance) that AI simply can’t grasp yet. AI can accelerate information processing – and even recommend potential solutions. But it won’t always be correct due to numerous edge cases. So, human oversight is key. Not just to validate the accuracy of responses, but also to re-prioritize AI’s decision making process. We’ve seen a lot of cases (especially in customer support) where fully automated AI systems failed to make the right decisions based on the support query. And if you look at more complex issues (like reservations, traveling, or advanced B2B interactions), the system might make an educated guess that could be incorrect due to unique properties or characteristics of the situation that humans would have picked up. One thing is for certain – the productivity gains from using AI systems will be significant and will enable people to focus on their thinking rather than repetitive tasks (like typing). But that doesn’t mean that these systems can operate autonomously. The unique insights and understanding of knowledgeable humans in these niched areas will remain critical for quite a while. Do you think we’ll see completely autonomous AI systems in the near future? #ai #financialservices #communication #realtimecommunication

We look at 2 classes of problems Gen AI can solve for businesses. 1) Accelerating human efforts Gen AI does a great job at interpreting language and making educated guesses based on its findings. This is why we’ve seen a lot of Co-Pilot-type apps. These apps assist humans by processing information quickly and generating results that are (most likely) useful. Humans can then take the information, confirm their accuracy and make minor adjustments. This process can be incredibly useful for productivity, particularly in areas like marketing copy or social media content creation. 2) Working from a specific information pool Gen AI can also do a great job when provided with specific information, such as documents, support conversation or a compilation of unresolved tickets. With this setup, we can validate the AI’s responses against the information pool and therefore increase accuracy. And the more the system is tuned to a specific set of data and use case, the more accurate & reliable the AI becomes. There’s also a third area that people are excited about. Yet, we haven’t seen much uptake yet: Using fully automated systems where AI runs everything and provides unsupervised answers. While there are many impressive demos, the reality is that most of these systems can’t deliver the level of consistency and accuracy most businesses require for operational use. AI brings promising possibilities to businesses, but shouldn’t be deployed prematurely in a production environment. For now, you should focus on the first two problem classes to avoid the costly dangers of inaccuracy and hallucination. What other use cases for Gen AI in business have you seen? #ai #genai #realtimecommunication #automation #financialadvisor

Capturing meeting information that people *care about* is different from capturing all information or just creating a meeting summary. Here’s why it’s important and how it differs: We've had a lot of insurance people join the platform recently and are continuing to grow the number of financial planners and advisors we work with. And the information they seek is very specific. They want to know every little detail about insurance coverage:  - what policies you have - where these policies are  - and how much they're for. We’ve built Zocks so that these questions can be answered directly from conversations. We categorize the types of insurance, indicating where policies are held, the value of those policies, and any other relevant information mentioned. So, the agent or advisor can quickly scan and understand if you have the coverage needed and can put a plan together. This approach also applies to cash flow, budgeting, and investments. We can pull up this information directly, allowing the advisor to use it right away without having to read through everything or scribble while talking with clients. It saves a huge amount of time and allows them to serve their clients more quickly. Would such a solution be beneficial for your business, too? #communication #conversationintelligence #ai #financialadvisor #insurance

Most companies wonder whether they should build their own AI workflows or buy them from an external vendor. Here’s what I suggest: The thing with AI is – it’s easy to create impressive product demos, but it’s challenging to maintain them reliably over time to meet the desired quality level in real-world environments. When reading the news, you see a bunch of fancy AI prompts and tools that seem to provide great value. But the problem is: If you have varying datasets, you’ll also get varying output quality. If you look at extracting information from meetings, factors like the length of the meeting or the number of participants greatly influence the quality of response. So, I think it’s great that companies experiment with AI systems to understand the potential and how it may benefit their business in the future. But for most, it’s key to find a reliable partner to navigate this rapidly changing landscape. Not just because of the required tech knowledge, but also to ensure the desired level of quality and repeatability when putting these systems into production. Especially in financial services, resources are limited and requirements for security, reliability and privacy are high. So, you can test things out internally. But for the long-term, it’s best to find a reliable partner. Plus, tools that seem significant today will likely be outdated in 12 to 24 months. Also, advisors looking to adopt AI should focus on choosing one platform and stick to it.  Otherwise, the time and effort involved in migrating between different systems may end up too high. Have you experimented with AI yet? #ai #conversationintelligence #realtimecommunication

How the ideal world for financial advisors would look like: Mobilize the back office within a *minute* after leaving a meeting and provide them with the information they need to start follow-ups and other necessary action. But this isn’t the reality today. That’s exactly why we built Zocks. By making notes and information available immediately after a meeting, actions like opening accounts, starting applications and transferring money can begin without delay. Currently, the process is often delayed because the advisor has to brief the back office staff on the tasks that need to be done. Oftentimes, this happens a couple of hours after the meeting (or even after a couple of days). This leads to dissatisfied clients – but frankly also wastes the time of back office staff. Zocks allows advisors and back office staff to take immediate action after a client meeting. So, all follow-up activities based on decisions made during the meeting can be tackled right away. But that’s just one benefit among many that Zocks provides. We’re working on automating downstream workflows to simplify back office operations and enhance team visibility. There are many opportunities to assist advisors and their teams further, so we’re happy to hear your suggestions. If you’re an advisor, feel free to comment your ideas below - or shoot me a private message. I’d love to hear from you! #ai #financialadvisor #communication #notetaking