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EP15 - The impact of AI on technology
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Artificial intelligence is moving faster than any technology our industry has seen — and the temptation is to race ahead. This conversation makes the case for the opposite.
In this episode, Steven Watts sits down with Founders Financial CEO Brad Shepherd and Senior Compliance Officer Jane Maccubbin to separate the hype from the practical reality of AI in an independent practice. They explore what it means to truly employ AI rather than simply have it, why a computer can never be a fiduciary, and where the real, defensible use cases live for advisors today. The throughline is a caution worth heeding: in a moment of AI gold rush, the firms that slow down, stay curious, and put the right guardrails in place are the ones that win.
A partner-to-partner conversation about using AI with intention — and keeping the human relationship at the center.
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From Founders Financial, this is the Built By and For podcast. Partner-to-partner conversations for independent financial advisors. Today, host Steven Watts, Chief Growth Officer at Founders Financial, sits down with Brad Shepard, CEO, and Jane McCubbin, Senior Compliance Officer at Founders Financial to discuss how to employ AI in your practice, not just adopt it, and what that means for your clients. AI is in every headline. But the quieter question for advisors is harder. Is it a tool you employ or one you let into the room without a job description? Here's the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for joining us today. We've got Jane McCubbin, our senior compliance officer, and Brad Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer for Fenders Financial. So thank you for coming back and uh joining us for another great discussion today.
SPEAKER_03Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00Glad to be here as well. Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna get into something that frankly no one's talking about right now, right? It's it's such a buried subject. No one's even talking about this stuff. It's it's AI.
SPEAKER_03What's AI?
SPEAKER_00What's AI?
SPEAKER_01Can you spell that for me?
SPEAKER_00Harder for some than others. Yeah. Let me AI that and it's it's spelled. Um yeah, so it's it's a topic, uh obviously and clearly it's on everyone's minds right now, right? And it's it it's it's every single news headline, it's and every single thing that pops up on uh on the news reports, it's impacting people's lives, businesses' lives. It's it's certainly in the uh the front center for everything going on now. So but in in in the world of financial advisory and independent financial advisors, this is revolutionary technology, this is disruptive technology and both good and bad, depending on how you want to look at it. Um it's it's really important for advisors to uh understand the impact this is making, not only to their business, but also the main point of today's conversation is how it impacts clients, right? And what that ultimately looks like. And you know, I don't think we're gonna pretend to predict the total future here, what this is gonna be. So maybe staying in the present of how client impacts are gonna be impacted in the immediate future. Um is kind of where we'll start today's conversation. How's that sound? Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, so let's to get started. Um, Brad, we can start off with you. Um talk about how AI is is kind of transforming the current world for advisors and maybe also for firms as well, which you lead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I I would say I think the idea of what it's gonna transform is more what's currently happening than it's actually transforming, um, but it's gonna come fast. Um and so uh the idea of what AI will be able to do um to help advisors streamline, operationalize, and do things better, more efficiently at scale is it's it's pretty powerful. And so when you spend time thinking about all of the things an advisor has to do on any given day to live up to the promise they've made to a client relationship to do what they said they're gonna do, um AI's got incredible application, whether it is helping them construct and build and think about um solving financial planning issues, um, workflows that you know are rules-based that can candidly probably be easily handled so that uh the people doing that work um that is more administrative and operational nature can have an opportunity to be elevated into a much more demonstrative, impactful client relationship facing kind of role, if that makes sense. Um the the quality of information and and data as it will transfer to things, uh all the way down to simple things like notes, uh note-taking software, those kind of things. So it it can touch, if thought about properly, you know, kind of almost any part of an advisor's practice. But that being said, I do fundamentally believe there's a part that it can never touch. Um, and that is the genuine authentic relationship that advisors build with clients, the trust that's shared. Um, you've heard me say this before, but the standard by which um advisors, I believe, should measure their success is very different than what we've our industry's trained advisors to measure their success by. And to me, it should be as simple as are the people that I'm called to serve granting me authority in their lives to do for them that which I would do for myself in the exact same circumstance. And and that AI can't do.
SPEAKER_03I agree.
SPEAKER_01What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_03Um, I honestly I couldn't have said it. I I I couldn't have said it better myself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. Um so let's let's start with this. It's for advisors and kind of what what you were just describing there, is is AI really just an efficiency tool, or is it more than that? Is it gonna be more than that? Jane, let's let's start with you on this one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's an interesting question. I think initially efficiency is is the lift that you get there. Um something as simple as how do I write this email to be more more friendly or more thorough, or what things should I be thinking about. Um in the future, perhaps it could be you know, it it it it could be more, but the you know, where I give pause is how someone wants to use it for efficiency. So I think in drafting communication, great. In helping me, help me think through a problem and point out some of my blind spots. I think that could be great. Where I where I worry, and to to Brad's point earlier about the um and you know how you lead your relationships. If someone looks at, oh, building a financial plan from scratch, uh, that is not a good use of my time. And so therefore I'm going to put that into a system. Um it's garbage in, garbage out. So you're not going to, it might make things faster, but it's not necessarily going to make things better. And so I I feel people really need to be thoughtful about how how they're going to utilize AI and what it, what are they getting, what are they putting into it, what are they getting out of it? And and is the the juice worth the squeeze, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Brad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think that um AI in its in its like the vision of its perfect use really is it's many things. It's operationally, it's an efficiency uh agent. I'm gonna use the term agent more than I'm gonna say tool. Uh, because the idea of AI is that it's it's actually doing the work that a human would otherwise do. Uh and I say I think advisors are gonna um be the most successful are the ones that have figured out effectively how to uh employ AI into their business and not just uh have AI in their business. And I and I think that's an important distinction. The idea of employing something, um, you'll invest into it, you'll you'll help it grow, you'll do a whole bunch of things because your investment is more than just a transaction to um a technological or a workflow or some kind of an outcome. Um and so uh I think advisors that uh uh choose to pursue how AI is an employee in their organization will be better than those that see it more as an efficiency technology tool, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's funny you say that, because that that that's where my mind typically goes. I I've actually long thought that really for any technology, but especially AI, you should actually write a job description for it, right? Give it a job description. You know, what's its role, what's it gonna do for it, what what do you how are you gonna measure its success, right? How are you gonna evaluate it on an annual basis? I mean, most employers, employees go through an annual review, right? We look at, hey, where did you succeed this year? You know, where do your strengths at? You know, what do we want to work on for futures? Yeah. Why shouldn't we be doing that with AI, right? If it truly is a virtual employee of the business, which I think is a phenomenal way to think about it, like should we be doing that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and and along those lines, I I I I don't think I know this, that um AI can be way much more than uh an efficiency tool. Yes. It's kind of too much. Yeah. Uh it can be, it can help you with thought leadership, it can help you with any number of things, the complex things it it that it takes to own and run a purpose-rich servant-lift and actually planet enterprise, uh, and and all that goes into that, of which uh growing and enhancing client relations is just one piece. Uh it it really can touch all of that if thought about properly. Um there's a book that I read called The AI Driven Leader that I thought it helped me uh strongly consider the nature of what AI can be as my partner, as my devil's advocate, as my challenger, as my supporter, a whole bunch of things if I engage with it in a pr in a manner that helps me solve problems. Yeah. And so to whatever degree, advisors will be curious about how to use it to help them solve problems.
SPEAKER_00Probably puts them in, I think, in an advantage over those that don't. Yeah, it's like that um it's not gonna help solve like human strategy, right, in many ways, but it's gonna be the subject matter expert that could come in and help help kind of um fill in the gaps, right? And things like that.
SPEAKER_01Uh I mean I think it might even help um those that their strength is at strategy build layer in some strategy. Build better strategy candidly. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think it's an interesting point. Um, and if you start off with the thought of what's the problem I'm trying to solve, and then pick the AI tool that helps solve that problem, you're going to get a better outcome. Where I see people adopting AI, they adopt whatever tools in front of them and they don't think thoughtfully about how do I engage it, what what am I trying to do, and they just use it like Google, it it doesn't, it doesn't do anything. In fact, you're going to either get wrong information or you're going to get something that is not satisfactory and it's going to turn you off. But if you if you start off with what's the problem I'm trying to solve, and then to your point about creating a a job description of how it helps solve that, you can find some pretty cool tools out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now, now AI in the world of compliance introduces some some unique uh you know situations, right? So what's going on in the compliance world right now? How is compliance thinking about AI in its role?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so it's it's interesting. The it's a top of uh top priority for both FINRA and the SEC this year. And I fully expect to see the industry at least have some thought leadership around AI, if not some type of a rule. And so what we've heard so far from the regulators is that firms that adopt AI need a way to supervise it, which makes sense. We need to supervise everything, uh, but nobody has come forward to say, here's how you supervise it. And so from a um from an internal lens, I'm looking at, okay, how can I, how can I backcheck certain things? So if I'm asking a question and I get a response, show me your sources. And so that's what I'm kind of doing. What I'm thinking about for the future, though, as we start to explore how we can use a bot to do work, for example, is are there certain types of reporting I can get that if something fails? Uh what I I really don't even know the the answer to that. And so, you know, I've been engaging in some industry calls, hearing, you know, the perspective of of others and and really trying to read everything that's been put out by the regulators just to see kind of where their heads are. Because I think nobody knows how to answer that. Then the flip side to that is, you know, that's all the good that AI can bring. But then there's also the the bad side with where the you know the criminals and the fraudsters and how they're using AI. And so uh that's another area that we just we need to to think about and get ahead of. And right now it's informing people, but it it's gonna present an interesting problem.
SPEAKER_00Is is the inj is the the regulators putting different expectations on compliance departments now with AI? Like is sampling changing fundamentally, right? Because uh things like that. Are they putting it?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. So I'd say the world of sampling is has gone the way of the Dodabird already. And that's just simply because of the availability of information. And and regulators are looking at us to say, you have this information available to you. So therefore, you need to be, you know, you need to be employing it. The the challenge that AI is going to bring is how do I know if I tell it, go out and find all these these transactions under this circumstance, how do I know that it got everything? Yeah. And and that's the that that's the million dollar question right now of how how do we solve that? And so a lot of it is in testing prior to bringing these tools on board. But how we monitor that ongoing is is to be determined, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Bright, let's bring it back to the the the client experience, right?
SPEAKER_01They let me do that in one second because uh on the regulatory front, I'm gonna I'm gonna go from a place of probably it's my opinion that it is a fact at this point, but I don't know that the regulars actually know yet. Yeah, they don't. And so that that's that's that makes this kind of hard uh for firms. Um, I think about cybersecurity as an example. Um the standard has evolved. Um, and I don't know that that anybody would agree that we have an actually well articulated um you know true standard that here's the check boxes that a regulator is going to view your firm by from a cyber perspective. I think AI is in that in that kind of same category. Early days, probably. Yeah, I think so. I think it's from a regulatory perspective, it's real wild west. And and so uh, you know, back to advisors, I think they should be uh aggressively asking their firms what their AI strategies are, how they're thinking about it in a manner that's gonna keep them protected and not exposed, um, helping them assess uh, because candidly, uh, you know, path of least resistance is a natural human trait, right? And so if I'm an advisor and uh there's a path of least resistance I can pursue, um, but it but and it hasn't been well articulated by my firm or my partner what what my standards are, what my barriers are, what my boundaries are, those kinds of things. It's you know, I can imagine advisors having and making mistakes around what they're putting into these LLMs, a Claude, a Chad GBT, uh, you know, from these different places, and and not fully considering the implications because hey, this is amazing. Look at this work it's doing for me. And so I I think we're in a little bit of the wild, wild west as an industry right now. Uh, and I think it's everybody, and I mean everybody, should slow down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I think advisors that um are racing and firms that are racing are creating probably pretty significant risks to having to undo or create outcomes they didn't expect or anticipate because we don't know, we don't know in this stuff to some degree. Absolutely. Um I think that uh it's to to marry kind of to Jane's points, there's a practical, effective use case, but it needs to be properly considered and and and well administered so that we reduce the risk um to bad outcomes.
SPEAKER_00The question I would have then is racing to what? Right? Right. Like what are they racing towards, right? What uh what is everyone and what are we racing towards, right? So maybe it's a great segue into this next piece is you know, how should we be thinking about how is founders thinking about the AI um participation in the advisor-client relationship? Is it replacing it? Is it is it staying way far away from it? Like what are we racing towards or what should we racing towards? What is founders racing towards?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I so I'll say we're not racing towards anything. Um we have a very um I I believe well-formed strategic can can perspective on what what we're going to do with it, why we're going to do with it, how it's going to impact. Um, we've you know, we've asked the question, what's the what's the outcome we seek, and how we kind of work back to it. Um and so in that sense, I I think that we're not racing. We are um actively, and I'd say it actively versus aggressively, we're actively assessing how this can positively change, work as we've always known it, so that we uh provide advisors the opportunity to be in their best seat, which is growing and enhancing relationships and try and helping them grow practices. Uh and so we have a defined strategy, but I think we also have a real advantage relative to our industry on this point, uh, in that um while our member partners they're independent, as we've and we've had plenty of conversations on this topic, um we but we know in the founders' land they're really more interdependent. And because of the relationship we share and the trust they've placed in us, um, our member partners, they're probably more, they're more dabbling, our advisors are probably more dabbling than they're racing towards something right now. Because we have had a transparent, open, communicated dialogue around what's great about this, what's not great about this, and what we're doing as our partner to bring it with them, for them, together, if that makes sense. And so for a lot, I believe a lot of independent advisors, this is gonna become more complicated because they don't have that symbiotic relationship with their firm. Sure. They they are independent and alone in many cases, and so they're gonna be making their own unique independent business decisions, and that's gonna create conflict with what the the the partner firm, quote unquote, is gonna allow, require, not allow, not require. And last I checked, advisors aren't technologists. Um they don't want to not all of them. Yeah, yeah, not all of them. Fair enough. At least the ones I know. I put myself in that category if I had to. But you know, the point being that um they're gonna be forced as business owners to tackle things that are complicated. And our founders, our member partners aren't gonna have to tackle that. We're working with them to bring out the solutions that have been compliance tested, that we know are gonna work, solve very specific use case and and problems that advisors need solved. And we're gonna do it in a very strategic, balanced, kind of I like to believe harmonious kind of way. So they don't get crushed and overwhelmed by this, and it becomes truly what the promise of AI could be in their firms. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think with all that said, the the the North Star, right, the the guiding principle that I think we're working towards, and I think, you know, if we're being honest, what we should all be working towards is we want to enhance the human relationship that the advisor has with their clients, right? And we don't want to see AI replace that. I don't think clients want that. Um, so what are we doing to actually use AI to do that better? Right. And the it's always a lot of the conversations are fear-based. Will it replace this? Will it replace humans? Yada, yada, yada. Well, we flip that and say, well, the end goal here is that we can actually spend more time with clients, right? We can spend, we can do more with clients. We can understand what matters to them more importantly, because the tools, the agents, like the things we have are allowing us the opportunity to do so because we're not bogged down with the stuff that ate away at that time in the past. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think candidly, to our to our industry's credit, you know, uh, I I think we need to say what is, and what is is for the most part, I think our industry's probably thinking about it that way. Uh all the research studies I've read, um, whether it's an e-money or other other you know high quality Michael Kitzis trusted resources, um, a little shout out to Michael. Uh, but uh you know, at the end of the day, uh it's pretty clear that the the kind of the thought leaders of our industry are all saying, yeah, how would do we use this collectively to enhance a human wonderful experience kind of a thing?
SPEAKER_00The trick is not get lost, right? Yeah, right. Because all the all the fun, shiny objects, right? It's not get lost from that main North Star vision.
SPEAKER_01But I also think, you know, and I think you you can probably tackle this from the compliance lens a little bit, like there's a reason why Reg BI exists. There's a reason why know your client exists, there's a reason why fiduciaries exist. And so to any advisor who believes that they don't have to know, and I mean deeply know their relationships, their clients. I I won't say cold, but kind of cold. Uh I think they're missing the boat. Um and it will be there will be temptation to have less true advisor ownership um of the the data and the circumstances and the facts because AI is going to simplify that. Um and so it's like, you know, one of the big positive changes in our industry is a lot of firms to grow faster have hired directors of planning to support advisors or associate advisors support advisors. And so, how much does an advisor become just the presenter of a plan versus really knowing the plan? Yeah. And I think there's an important compliance lens to that. Uh and I AI risks making that worse potentially.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. So the reality is that people who don't know their relationships cold aren't going to last long and they're not going to won't go very far in the industry. They they're they're going to hop around. Um, that said, we can use AI to help us identify patterns that maybe we would have already that you know that we would have missed. But the the key compliance point that we're emphasizing to to our advisors is is twofold. First and foremost is that if you use AI for any type of planning, your name's still on that. So you need to own that. You need to evaluate it, kick the tires, bring your professional expertise in there and say, yeah, I agree with that, or or no, I don't. Because the truth is that a computer computers are smart, they can do a lot of things, but they're they're not better than what you bring to to the relationship. The second piece is that um you need to understand the unintended consequences of of what you do and what that means for your relationships. And so, for example, it would be very easy for me, and and I'm just gonna caveat this with don't do this, it would be very easy for me to take someone's statements, load It into Claude or ChatGPT or whatever and say, give me observations about this. What I in doing so though, what I haven't thought about is how is that data being used? Is it teaching their AI? Is it potentially going to pop up somewhere else? I think a year ago, uh I think it was ChatGP chat GPT, but I'm not sure where some information that had been loaded in as prompts popped up as searchable online. And so what you don't want to do as a fiduciary and someone who has a deep relationship, potentially compromise your client's confidential information, whether it's their personally identifying information or just stuff that's going on in their life because you were trying to save five minutes. And so that's where where when you're bringing in an AI tool, one, if if something is free, know that you are the product. Um but secondly, as you when you're bringing in tools, the most important question is to ask is how are you using my information? Is it how how are you keeping it safe? Or how are you making sure that it doesn't leave the four walls, four virtual walls of my organization? Um, and if it is being used to teach the AI that others are using it, how are you protecting what is proprietary to me and confidential to my clients?
SPEAKER_00And that's where those industry controls are still very much in development.
SPEAKER_01And there's a giant wild card. Um so can an AI advisor bot use, you know, the thing that creates all this? Because the million-dollar question will humans be advisors in the future? Or will everybody just go to you know the financial planning bot and get their financial plans done and their investment management done and all those kinds of things? But there's a legal standard that's that's no one's thinking about. And a computer can't be a fiduciary.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um they're not a human. And so so how do you get over that simple hurdle? You kind of can't, right? And so um, so I sue the AI if if the advice it gave me isn't good and it didn't work out. Uh you're right. And so it goes back to what I said a few minutes ago. AI is a is a partnered tool. When used well, will in wonderful ways enhance workflow experience outcomes, uh, any number of things. Um but it it ultimately, and I, you know, to the day I die, I'll go down fighting for this. It can't replace Brad Shepard or Jane McCubbin or Steve Watts or anybody. It's not built to do that.
SPEAKER_00I I'll give you an example I saw the other day, and then you know, whether I should or shouldn't it is, I don't know. But you know, I was looking to see if uh two medications that I was taking were gonna have interactions. I wasn't sure, right? You know, and so I looked, I I put into to one of the AIs and I said, Hey, is it safe I take these medications together? And it it came back and said, you know what, it's they're they're okay. There's no known situations they would interact. But the big disclaimer put them on it was but please contact your doctor to and to be sure. So perfect, right? Even the AI is giving the disclaimers, hey, worse, we don't know if we're 100% right here.
SPEAKER_01But here's the more important question, I think. Would do you, do you, would you, did you trust what it said and make your decision based on it? You didn't. I didn't take it. Right, exactly. And that's the point, right? So how do we, as humans, where is and what needs to take place? And I don't know the answer, where we have so much confidence, belief, trust. And you've we've talked about this before. Uh the goal is to earn the authority on people's lives. How is AI gonna earn authority in our lives? Well, I actually logged in.
SPEAKER_00I logged in on a medical portal and sent a message to my doctor and got some back the next day, and she said it was fine. So that's what happened.
SPEAKER_03But I I think you you bring up a really interesting point because 15 years ago, the industry was convinced that roboadvisors were going to turn the world on its head and we and and we would lose market share. And perhaps some experience that. Um, and both of those solutions are going to help me meet my financial goals in theory. In theory, those solutions are not going to give me a relationship and that validation. And the the it's not going to give me someone I can talk through talk to to help me understand what's going on, help me think differently about this, help me, you know, I'm really worried about um, you know, uh saving for my kids, you know, saving for my kids' education. Neither one of those solutions are going to give that. Um one there was uh someone that I I worked with in a prior life who um used to say, you know, what we're helping people save for a 30-year vacation, the retirement. And what more noble causes that? And so that's where I, you know, when I think about any kind of technology, be it AI or something, is that we can't let uh anything get in the way of what our purpose and our cause is. And so the people who continue to come to advisors after the world of robo advisors, after the world of you know, cheap index funds are the ones that are seeking relationships.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think there's those sacred things in life, and and I don't see this changing, but I can't predict the future, where they're so sacred that we need that human interaction. So your your health is the example I gave earlier, right? Yeah, you know, your money, right? I mean your money's very personal to you, it's your future, right? How things impact your family to a to a to a very you know fine level. Those things, um, it's my belief that uh it's it's it's maybe supported by AI with knowledge and information, but that that presence of humanity still needs to be there, right? Because it's the reassurance that it's not just about facts and data and figures, those things are important, obviously, but it's the understanding of another human to my own situation, my own you know, empathy of where I'm at that it's I think it's that's always going to be a challenge for for a bot, right? Now again, maybe things change, but I think that's the way you look at it today. Yeah. So I want to move on real quick to another thing, you know. Obviously, the AI technology um is is in consumers' hands, it's in clients' hands, it's just their daily lives, right? They're they're creating recipes for it, they're doing their shopping list with it. Hi, I've done that multiple times. Um But has the expectations that clients are gonna have for their advisors changed because of AI, because of their own uses with AI? Do we think it's changed?
SPEAKER_03So I'm gonna say the expectation has changed, but not necessarily from the lens of they're expecting advisors to adopt it. Uh I think people have no problem paying for services if they see the value that the service is bringing to them. And so what we don't want is clients and what clients don't want, and you and you're already kind of seeing this in other areas of the marketplace outside of financial services, of I don't want to engage with a bot, I want to engage with the human. So the way that you use AI to help improve your workflow and improve your thought process and improve your deliverable, but again, without it coming through to the end client that that's who they are interacting with, I think that's the expectation that that I'm seeing from clients today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so I'm gonna give you kind of a wishy-washy answer. I don't know. Right. And so I at the end of the day, um, AI is a tool.
SPEAKER_03Um said it was an agent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, no, yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. If used right, it's an agent. Yeah. But today it's a tool. Yeah. And so when that's all said and done, uh, do I believe that consumers will become clients, the marketplace will become more comfortable working with the agents that get produced from these tools? Yes. But I don't think they will in the things that are important.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so um, if I only need to know my Verizon bill, I got no problem going into my app, asking the chat bot what's my Verizon bill for, then let it show it to me. Like there's a lot of things that are informational based that um I think this is gonna do a great job. And I think the consumers in general will be comfortable with that. Sure. Um, but things that matter, um, the the things that are most important to somebody to feel certainty is different than to be told something certain. And along those lines, that to me is the ultimate value that financial advisors bring to anybody's life is that. Um you've you know you've seen me do presentations before on this very topic. Um, talk about what is the how do you measure the impact of our work. And I and there was one slot I built that you know, how many how many heads hit pillows at night and go to sleep comfortably, happily, and and knowing that things are gonna be okay. I don't know that an AI bot or AI can do that. You know, and if it can, I'll I'll I'll be the first to raise my hand and say, well, I was wrong, um, but I don't think that. In fact, and I know for Brad Shepard, that would never be the case. Um, it's the experience I have looking you in the eye, feeling it, you me knowing, and not in a way that is intellectual, but it but it is emotional, it is um it is it just transcends intellect that you've got my back, that you're in the foxhole with me and you're gonna help me get through the hard stuff and celebrate the good stuff. Yeah, and so uh I I I do believe that there'll be comfortable adoption for many relative things that are informational and operational, but for the important things in life, yeah, I I don't think that's well and to your point.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you answered that question a couple of minutes ago. You're willing to take the risk with the grocery list because the worst case scenario is you buy the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_01Low risk. Or or you actually get there and don't buy the wrong thing and just buy whatever else you wanted.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. But you're not willing to take that risk with your health because that pot the worst possible thing is is a lot worse than that.
SPEAKER_00And things that are important. Yeah. Yeah, your risk threshold is is different.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All right. Uh we'll wrap up here. Um, give me kind of one parting thought that advisors should take away from this conversation regarding AI and its future role in their enterprise. Who wants to go? I'll open it for anyone to go first.
SPEAKER_03All right, well, I'm gonna give you two thoughts.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03First is slow down to Brad to Brad's point. And then always ask the question, how is my data being used? Because that is going to help you ask informed questions to the people or the organizations that you're looking to engage with and help you narrow down to find the ones that are going to not only help you serve your clients better, but also to protect them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'll just add on to the data piece. Um, it's yes, it's part how it's gonna be used, but it's also the quality of the data. Um, so advisors that begin to adopt these tools, um, at least the advisors that I've known for 30 years in this business, aren't always the best at keeping their data clean. It's a constant battle. Um and so they're gonna have a uh a need, I'll even say a responsibility, an obligation to make sure their data is really clean now so that they can actually use these tools to their to their best capabilities. Um I agree, slow down is definitely a part, but to me, it really comes down to this. Uh it is have have a strategy. Um advisors and our industry, our country, our world, we're gonna get a lot of shiny objects jumping at us all the time in the next weeks, months, years. Uh and uh you know, there's a reason bugs get drawn to the light. You know, they can't help themselves. Uh and so you know, don't be the bug that gets drawn to the light, is kind of my advice. Slow down, pay attention, understand what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how it fits. Um today, it's not a a difference maker in the sense that it's life or death for your business, or life or death for your client. Uh your clients are perfectly happy the way you're doing things today. And so this is this really doesn't have to be a race. Um it's the Taurus versus the hair.
SPEAKER_00Choose the tortoise path.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Maybe, maybe look at the light, watch everyone else get fried from it, maybe get a little warrant from it, but stay stay back far enough.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, again, you made a really good point about what are the unintended consequences that we don't know what we don't know. And um we're some some news articles are gonna break at some point, and we're all gonna go, oh my. Yeah, wish we'd thought about that. And I'm not saying that to to create fear for people, but I am saying it in the sense that um, you know, with every powerful tool comes powerful responsibility um and to to look at look at it that way.
SPEAKER_00It's like that important. Well, that's a great way to end it. Uh, Jane, Brad, thanks for joining today. Thank you. Having a great discussion, and uh hope to have you guys back on again soon.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_01Thanks.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for spending time with us on the Built By and For podcast. If this conversation resonated, follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and share it with an advisor in your circle who's thinking about what comes next. To learn more about Founders Financial and our solutions for independent advisors, visit Foundersfinancial.com. The Built By and For Podcast is produced by Founders Financial. The opinions expressed by hosts and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Founders Financial. Content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment, legal, or tax advice. Securities offered through Founders Financial Securities, LLC, member FINRA, and SIPC, registered investment advisor. Copyright Founders Financial, all rights reserved.
