Financial advisors interested in using artificial intelligence tools to boost productivity and service quality have a lot of parties to turn to. According to Altruist CEO Jason Wenk, nobody is in a better position to support advisors with AI than the custodian.
“In the complex world of financial advice, the custodian serves as the ultimate system of record,” Wenk said. “For AI to be powerful in our world, it needs data access and great context, and only the custodian can truly deliver on both. At the end of the day, we are the party that can see everything, from the titling of accounts, to the selection beneficiaries to the calculation of RMDs.”
That’s why Wenk believes that custodian-based account and planning data is “the key to empowering advisors with AI." To that end, Altruist has launched its first standalone service in the form of a subscription-based AI platform dubbed “Hazel.”
Wenk previewed the offering during a presentation at the Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, California.
“Hazel is a game changer for advisors,” Wenk said. “She’s designed to take on the work that weighs on them most. That includes note-taking, CRM entries and scheduling — and more complex tasks like email management and in-depth research. By unifying all of these core functions in one platform, we’re making it easier for advisors to do what they do best and help more people.”
Unifying these functions and supporting them with “an unmatched amount of data” puts an RIA custodian like Altruist in the best position to deliver AI capabilities that can “truly move the needle,” Wenk argued.
Hazel is now available as a standalone platform for $60 per seat monthly or $600 per seat annually. In the coming months, Wenk said, Hazel will fully integrate with Altruist’s custodial platform, unlocking the “deepest level of data” to deliver insights and help advisors anticipate client needs with greater precision. Once fully optimized, he suggested, the tool should be able to provide advisors with the same degree of support as 10 or more assistant staffers.
Hazel’s standout feature, according to Wenk, is “Ask Hazel Anything.” The tool answers questions instantly based on a firm’s recorded conversations, emails, documents and CRM systems. It also factors in market and regulatory information.
For example, Wenk said, an advisor might use a prompt such as, “Remind me what we discussed with the Millman family last quarter, and tell me what I should follow up on in our upcoming meeting.” Hazel would deliver a “highly tailored” response specific to the connected financial plan details and prior guidance.
Wenk said his confidence in the tool is rooted in his use of Hazel to support the clients that he continues to work with directly as an advisor.
"I was catching up with one client the other day who is in the difficult position of serving as power of attorney for her husband, who has advanced Alzheimer's disease," Wenk recounted. "She was looking for insight about RMDs and how much she needed to withdrawal versus what her husband had been doing. Well, the AI has a decade-plus of notes and context from that relationship to draw on to help us find the right answer. Her husband can’t remember, but Hazel does. The tool showed us what was done in the past and what would be the recommended course of action. And it's not just giving a checklist of to-dos. It's actually able to cue up key next steps and make it one-click to approve."
Pictured: Jason Wenk
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