Written by Jason Katz, Private Wealth Advisor and Managing Director at UBS Financial Services; and Jordan Ricciardi, Senior Wealth Strategy Associate for Katz Wealth Management UBS Financial Services
There’s a narrative gaining momentum that artificial intelligence will eventually replace financial advisors. It’s an appealing idea, AI is efficient, data-driven, fast and a fraction of the cost of what many advisors charge. In fact “the death of the advisor” has been a narrative since 1999 with the inception of E trade, then again in 2008 in robo advisors. But from where I sit, that narrative fundamentally misunderstands what good financial advising actually is.
AI will absolutely transform this industry. In fact, it already has. The best advisors are using it to analyze portfolios faster, identify tax strategies more efficiently, and surface insights that would have taken hours—or days—to uncover just a decade ago. But replacing a good financial advisor? That’s a different conversation entirely. Because at its core, financial advising isn’t just about optimizing numbers. It’s about guiding human beings through uncertainty and sometimes even being more of a therapist.
Every client walks into a relationship with a unique mix of goals, fears, biases, and lived experiences. Two people can have identical balance sheets and require completely different advice. Why? Because money decisions are rarely just about money. They’re about identity, family, risk tolerance, legacy, and sometimes even regret. AI can model scenarios. It can project outcomes based on probabilities. But it doesn’t sit across the table from someone who just lost a spouse and help them decide whether they can afford to retire. It doesn’t talk a nervous investor off the ledge during a market downturn when fear is telling them to sell everything at the worst possible moment. It doesn’t navigate the delicate dynamics of a family business transition or help parents align on how to support their children without compromising their own financial security. A good advisor does all of that—and more. In my practice we grow in age and wealth with our clients many of them we have worked with for 20+ years, allowing us to understand their unique perspective and lived experiences that help us drive investment decisions.
There’s also the matter of trust. Financial advising is, at its best, a deeply personal relationship built over time. Clients aren’t just buying a portfolio strategy; they’re buying confidence. They’re buying clarity in moments when the stakes feel high and the path forward isn’t obvious. That kind of trust isn’t built through an algorithm. It’s built through consistency, empathy, and judgment—qualities that don’t scale in the same way technology does.
AI operates on patterns and historical data. But the future doesn’t always resemble the past. Markets evolve. Policies change. Black swan events happen and many of them I have the battle scars from them and know how to navigate them. In those moments, the value of an advisor isn’t just in what they know—it’s in how they think. It’s their ability to synthesize incomplete information, weigh trade-offs, and make decisions in real time with a client’s full context in mind.
That’s not something you outsource entirely to a machine. Now, will the role of the advisor change? Absolutely. The advisors who survive—and thrive—will be the ones who embrace AI as a tool, not resist it as a threat. They’ll automate the commoditized parts of the job and double down on the human elements: strategic thinking, behavioral coaching, and relationship-building – In other words, the bar is going up.
Clients will expect more insight, more personalization, and more value. AI will help deliver on those expectations—but it will also expose advisors who rely solely on basic portfolio construction and generic advice. My team of twenty-four investment professionals in all areas of personal finance making us a one stop shop to deliver on our client goals whether that be mortgages, risk management, retirements plans or alternatives investments.
Our team and truly good advisors—the ones who understand that this business is as much about people as it is about portfolios—aren’t going anywhere. Because in a world where information is abundant and automation is everywhere, the rarest commodity isn’t data.
It’s perspective.
