When Sindhu Joseph, Ph.D. founded CogniCor in 2018, her vision was to provide the financial services industry with the tools needed to alleviate the back-office inefficiencies and allow advisors to focus on building and growing their business. Her company’s AI-enabled digital assistants and business automation tools not only reduced the amount of time a financial advisor spends preparing for a meeting but also enhance the meeting itself.
Now, in the wake of a nearly revolutionary AI leap that permeates everyday life and drives global news coverage, CogniCor is taking another measured step forward to enhance the ability of wealth management firms and advisors to do business better.
CogniCor launched the first-ever knowledge maps for the wealth management industry in 2021. Last year, the company was recognized with multiple wealth management technology awards. And in January, the firm announced the launch of its Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service-enabled enterprise-ready digital assistants for these sectors.
Digital Wealth News spoke with Joseph about what problems her company’s newest product Advisor Co-Pilot is solving, how its newly integrated Insights Engine enhances its platform and how AI can make the human experience of meeting with clients more personable.
Digital Wealth News: CogniCor’s Advisor Co-Pilot is an AI-powered platform solution for the wealth management industry. Broadly speaking, what problem can AI solve for advisors?
Sindhu Joseph: Studies show that financial advisors spend an enormous amount of time on back-office tasks, sometimes twice as much as they spend on actual financial planning. This is a significant problem for individuals who may need support in the wake of the Great Wealth Transfer and for those advisors looking to take advantage of this potential new business. Our new Co-Pilot drives efficiencies and streamlines nearly every aspect of the advisor-client relationship, completing forms, expediting planning documents, taking complete and accurate notes and relieving the pressures of repetitive back-office tasks.
However, more importantly, this product can take all this information and deliver actionable insights for advisors to use directly with clients. Think of it as enhancing an advisor’s Client IQ. With the integration of our new Insight Engine, we can help advisors put their finger on the client’s pulse and better understand what they want based on all available data, conversations and trends. It allows advisors to personalize client services, portfolio management and risk assessment at scale.
DWN: Can you talk about the specific tasks the Advisor Co-Pilot can handle for the advisors?
SJ: We see the Co-Pilot as just that—a tool that works seamlessly with the advisor to support client prospecting, financial planning, onboarding, meetings, and client management services. It can also offer guidance on compliance processes and forms. We have an additional generative tool in development that helps deliver compliance-ready marketing materials, emails, proposals, and other writing-intensive client materials. Proper utilization of this solution can enhance everything an advisor does.
While this tool can drive efficiencies and offer actionable insights, it doesn’t handle the actual relationship with clients. There must be a person to do that work. Using the Co-Pilot makes this work easier, better informed, and more efficient. However, our solution isn’t designed to replace the human advisors. The AI-enabled advisor, one willing to leverage these tools for their business, will not only drive scale and enhance efficiencies, but they will also be able to deliver personalized advice to each of their clients delivering better ROI for every client they serve.
DWN: Insights Engine, which is now integrated as part of the Advisor Co-Pilot program, could be described as an all-knowing personal assistant for advisors. How does it serve that purpose?
SJ: An experienced, talented personal assistant can make your life easier by knowing what you need before you need it and providing it contextually. This is what the Insights Engine is designed to do for advisors. From all available sources, including the core client data, trends in holdings, meeting notes and call transcripts, and official information exchanges, such as emails and text, the Insight Engine considers this range of data and segments them into critical areas of the client-advisor relationship to deliver practical, actionable summary and suggestions for the advisor to consider with the client.
One of the Insights Engine’s most important features is that it makes an advisor’s client engagement more personal. The suggestions are classified into key areas of the advisor-client relationship, like job status, family and individual values, and investment objectives, to provide a comprehensive snapshot of a client’s needs, goals, and evolving situations—again, allowing the advisor to put their finger on a client’s pulse at any time. This gives advisors a more holistic view of their clients beyond just the investment portfolio.
This is a relationship-driven business where advisors must develop a personal connection with their clients to fuel further engagement – and it’s hard to keep up with everyone all the time. We all need help to do this well. The Insight Engine aims to make advisors better by considering everything and providing only what they need to foster better client relationships and results that reflect a client’s highly personalized needs, desires and goals.
