AI Brings Gains for Time Management, but More Mistakes, Too

Artificial intelligence appears to deliver on at least some of its promise for financial advisers. As adoption continues to spread across the industry, more than half of surveyed advisers using AI reported saving at least four hours per week, according to a new report by wealth management platform AssetMark Inc.

AssetMark’s “2026 Advisor Insights Report: Artificial Intelligence: AI Moves From Experimentation to Expectation” found that 85% of advisers have adopted AI to some degree, with 55% of surveyed advisers reporting time savings of at least four hours or more each week.

“Giving an adviser four or more hours back each week is meaningful, but the real opportunity is what they can do with that capacity: spend more time with clients, apply their judgment to more complex problems and focus on the work where human expertise matters most,” said Alex Pape, AssetMark’s chief product and technology officer, in a statement.

Separately, in analyzing a July Escalent Cogent Beat Advisor survey of 549 advisers, Vanguard found that AI adoption among financial advisers is growing, but most firms remaining in early stages of adoption.

Respondents reported most often using the technology for drafting emails (38%), conducting research (35%) and taking meeting notes (27%). Advisory firms reported hurdles to broader adoption and automation, with home office hesitance and compliance as the most-cited hurdle (37%), followed by a perceived lack of time to learn a new capability (34%), limited proficiency (31%) and concerns of AI undercutting their value (22%).

“Many financial advisers have only begun to scratch the surface of AI’s potential,” said Lauren Wilkinson, Vanguard’s chief information officer of financial advisor services, in a statement. “To fully realize the benefits of AI, firms will need to evolve from using the technology to assist with tasks to using it to automate them. Doing so can unlock more time for higher value work.”

According to Andrew Jefferys, national vice president of wealth management solutions at OneDigital, firms should not expect one AI tool to solve all of its problems. 

“Rather than betting the firm on a single model, we use what we call ‘AI harnesses’ to match the model and capabilities to the right use case,” he wrote in an email to PLANADVISER. “We have people whose job is to understand where each model performs well, how to deploy it safely, and to keep a feedback loop running so the tools are actually helping our advisers and clients.”

Where AI for Advisers Stands

On Monday, Anthropic PBC debuted a new tool, Claude for Financial Advisors, at Future Proof Festival, a wealth and tech conference.

The plugin, which combines adviser skills and connectors, currently has 11 partners, including BlackRock, Charles Schwab, Addepar, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, Wealthbox, Wealth.com and Zocks. According to a separate Schwab Advisor Services announcement, it is the first custodian integrated with Claude for Financial Advisors.

“Financial wellness improves when people get the right advice,” wrote Peter Nolan, Anthropic’s head of asset and wealth management, in a LinkedIn post “The problem is Only four out of 10 have an adviser, and it’s a supply issue; the typical adviser spends just one-sixth of their time with clients, while the rest [of the time] goes to prep, paperwork and toggling between systems.”

When it comes to wider firm implementation, Jefferys sees the new Anthropic tools pointing to the right use cases for advisers: research, meeting prep, surfacing relevant client information and cutting down admin work.

“What I’d add is that the most useful version of this isn’t a standalone chatbot off to the side, it’s AI built into the adviser’s actual workflow, so it shows up in the context of how the work really gets done,” wrote Jefferys. 

Freeing up more time for advisers was a common thread in AssetMark’s survey findings.

Apart from freeing up a minimum of four hours a week for advisers, AssetMark also found 50% of advisers using AI reporting improved work quality; 43% cited business growth; 41% reported improved client experience or satisfaction; and 40% increased firm revenue.

Ninety-one percent of surveyed RIAs had adopted AI-integrated solutions, compared with 81% of independent financial advisers affiliated with broker/dealers. RIAs were also more likely to expect their use of AI to increase during the next 12 months—87%, compared with 75%.

AssetMark’s survey was conducted online from June 24 through July 7 among 400 financial advisers, including 152 RIAs and 248 independent financial advisers affiliated with broker/dealers. Existing AssetMark clients were excluded from the study.

Surprising Benefits

Another benefit derived from AI was found in the inaugural 2026 RIA Market Monitor, produced by Astraeus Wealth Tech, which provides AI-native infrastructure. According to the research, firms disclosing their use of AI had increased operational staff and productivity metrics at higher and faster rates when compared with firms that had not disclosed AI adoption.

Among enterprise and large RIAs, assets under management per adviser increased by 22% between April 2025 and April 2026, compared with 12% among comparable firms without AI disclosures.

According to the report, firms that disclosed their AI use in regulatory filings increased total headcount by 15% between April 2025 and April 2026, compared with 8% growth among firms without AI disclosures.

“Much of the public conversation around AI assumes that the technology will reduce headcount, but that’s not what we’re seeing,” said Jon Stevenson, a co-founder and the president of Astraeus, in a statement. “The firms moving fastest with AI are hiring people, investing in operational infrastructure and building the capabilities necessary to support more sophisticated businesses. At this stage, AI appears to be creating capacity rather than replacing it.”

Cons of AI

Even with steady adoption of the technology, most surveyed advisers said they did not have enough time to dedicate to client relationships as they would like. According to Vanguard, 72% of advisers said they wished they had more time to devote to prospecting and deepening existing client relationships.

Moreover, in a separate report by Macabacus, a Microsoft Office plugin for financial professionals, 87% of surveyed users said they used AI daily or weekly for model generation and client presentation creation.

Most users (62%) said they believed a client at some point had received a model or presentation with an error made by AI in the last year, and a separate 45% believed an AI error probably reached a client in the last 12 months, but “no one noticed.”

“AI is now involved in the majority of models and documents that reach clients,” said Paul Ross, chief marketing officer at Macabacus, in a statement. “Deal teams should not slow down their use of AI. They need guardrails that let them move faster while maintaining accuracy and their clients’ trust.”

According to Jefferys, the more AI used in an adviser’s workflow, the more opportunity there is for error. Which is why, he said, firms will have to invest in proper oversight and adviser trainings. 

“Internally, we think about it this way: AI produces a first draft, never a finished product, and there’s always a licensed professional between the model and the client. For anything higher-risk or client-facing, we build in explicit human checkpoints before it reaches a client,” he wrote.