Microsoft Report Says AI Will Replace Advisors. Advisors Say, Not So Fast

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Microsoft recently released a report on the jobs most likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence, and personal financial advisors landed at No. 30 on the list of 40, with a high AI applicability score. Advisors were alongside other professions at risk of an AI takeover, including market research analysts, editors and public relations specialists.
But advisors who spoke with WealthManagement.com don't see AI as a threat. Rather, they view it as an extension of the tech innovation that's been going on for decades; it can be used for certain tasks, such as proofreading and notetaking, to make them more efficient and create more capacity. However, as with other tech innovations, such as robo advisors, AI will not be able to replicate the human connection advisors have with their clients.
'I think the timeline for innovation is just going to accelerate because of this,' said Kevin Hrdlicka, head of wealth at Savant Wealth Management. 'Twenty years ago, there wasn't really even financial planning software. You did everything with Excel. Think of CRM workflows. Those are all things that have dramatically changed the roles for the people in the industry and financial advisors.'
Hrdlicka uses AI notetaking software as an example. Previously, his firm had a junior advisor who took notes at every meeting. Now, the notetaking technology handles that part so Savant can accelerate that advisor's training and development.
'Hopefully that will bear out as people can gain knowledge faster than they could have before because they don't have to be the scribe as part of their career,' he said. 'We're going to train on how to take good notes and follow up, but now there's technology. It's AI technology that will record and do a meeting follow-up, and it'll drop tasks into the CRM and all that stuff. It's been really helpful for people in seeing that those are skills that weren't adding a ton of value, and I can focus on things that are more important to the end client.'
The Microsoft report analyzes 200,000 anonymized user–AI conversations, sampled representatively from 9 months of Bing Copilot, Microsoft's AI chatbot, usage in the U.S. during 2024. The company measured how successfully different work activities are assisted or performed by AI.
The report found that people commonly sought AI assistance for information gathering, writing and executing financial transactions. By itself, AI was performing tasks such as providing information and assistance, writing, teaching and advising.
'And to me, everything that [the report is] pointing to is, I think, accurate in the sense that being able to gather information quickly, model 10 different scenarios, those are things AI is going to help advisors with,' Hrdlicka said. 'But I think it'll evolve how the human advisor works with end clients. It's more of a continuation across all industries of just change and technology that will impact how we do things.'
AI can help advisors lay a lot of the groundwork when advising a client on a certain life event. But the actual advice is going to be tailored to the individual client's goals and values, he said.
'It can serve up strategies, it can bring ideas, but then once you actually have the goals that the client and the person has, I think that is going to be hard to replicate,' he said. 'The best financial advice still comes from someone who knows your story, not from a spreadsheet.'
Brandon Galici, founder and financial planner at Galici Financial in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., said it's not just the knowledge and information the financial advisor brings to the client relationship; it's how to apply it. AI might be able to come up with some softer side, behavioral finance-type questions. But he doesn't believe that will be enough to get people to take action.
''Why is anyone ever going to pay an advisor an AUM fee? You could do robo advisor, and it's so much cheaper and effective,' Excuse me,' he said. 'But that just hasn't happened. And even those big companies are having a tougher time trying to get people on their platform without as much human connection.'
To be sure, Galici uses AI in his practice, primarily as a proofreader for the content he produces for clients. It speeds up some of his proofreading and research processes so he can spend more time on what he calls 'high-value tasks.'
'That's having those connections with clients, having conversations, sending emails back and forth where they feel seen, they feel heard, and they know that I'm helping them plan for their future, and I'm just constantly monitoring their situation.'
Chris Roy, a former senior client strategy at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, said human trust, connection, judgment, compliance and fiduciary guidelines will never be replaced by technology. But if firms use AI properly, it can 'turbo-boost' advisors' revenue generation and productivity.
'The firms that can develop secure proprietary AI models and ecosystems (which requires a huge investment) will see their advisors become far more productive and profitable,' he said. 'Many big banks and wirehouses still operate on overnight old batch processing mainframes, which restrict their agility.'
A recent study by Northwestern Mutual found that most Americans trust advisors over AI on a range of financial planning strategies. For instance, 56% of Americans surveyed said they trust humans more to create a retirement plan, versus 13% who said they would trust AI more.
'Financial planning isn't just about numbers on a spreadsheet—it's an emotional discussion around a person's life goals,' said Jeff Sippel, chief strategy officer at Northwestern Mutual, in a statement. 'These conversations are complex, delicate and deeply personal. Clients want to discuss their options with a trusted financial advisor who understands their needs and the trade-offs associated with these big financial decisions at a human level."
But the same study found that nearly half of Americans (47%) prefer to work with an advisor who understands and uses AI. The stat is even higher among younger investors, with 54% of Generation Z and millennials preferring to work with an advisor who uses the technology as part of their role.
Melissa Reaktenwalt, founder and advisor with EViE Financial Group in Upper Marlboro, Md., said she uses AI for many tasks, including notetaking, asset management and risk assessment. But she believes the human aspect of financial planning is still essential.
'There's a place for financial advisors from a human perspective, not just from the job perspective, but also for clients and what clients are looking for. So I'm not initially concerned more than any other takeover or shift that AI is going to bring, but I do think it's worth financial advisors paying attention to, certainly because I think there are some technical aspects of the job that likely can be replaced and likely will be.'
She's implemented a therapy model in her financial planning practice, allowing people to discuss how they feel about money.
'It's the most important part when people can talk through some of those things and have a partner in that and have the ability to also use not just a chatbot, but a human as a sounding board for some of those things and some of their ideas for wealth management or managing or organizing their finances,' she said.
But she believes AI is part of a new wave of innovation that can be both exciting and scary.
'If we just let the thing run by itself, we still have to be in charge of that; there still has to be a guardrail of some sort,' she said. 'For advisors, it's really helpful to just understand that these tools are really powerful. They can be significant game changers for a business and specifically for smaller independent firms. But good grief, there's still so much that we don't know, and there's a lot that still requires human direction and human guidance.'