AI & Finance™ | News for the Week Ending 3/14/25

Ai For Alpha, a leading fintech specializing in AI-driven investment strategies, is proud to release its latest innovation: the Private Equity Liquid Decoding strategy. The Ai For Alpha approach leverages advanced machine learning techniques to replicate private equity benchmarks, using liquid futures, offering investors private equity-style returns while adding daily liquidity. 

Ai For Alpha’s proprietary Decoding technology enables the construction of futures-based transparent and cost-efficient replication portfolios for alternative strategies, including CTAs, Global Macro, and hedge fund global benchmarks. These sophisticated portfolio models have been adopted by leading asset managers and QIS (Quantitative Investment Strategies) desks of major banks to develop high-correlation market-access solutions. 

With the Private Equity Liquid Decoding, Ai For Alpha is expanding its expertise to private equity replication, addressing the key challenges of traditional private equity investments: This innovation meets growing investor demand for liquid alternatives to private equity, as exit rates have declined sharply in recent years. 

Algebrik AI Inc., a Delaware-incorporated company headquartered in New York City, pioneering the world’s first cloud-native, AI-powered, digital era Loan Origination System (LOS), today announced that it has joined the Jack Henry™ Vendor Integration Program (VIP). Participation in the program provides Algebrik AI with access to Jack Henry’s technical resources to enable its Loan Origination Platform to integrate with Symitar®. The Vendor Integration Program is designed to help ensure that Jack Henry’s customers can easily deploy third-party products. 

Algebrik AI’s Loan Origination Platform integrates with Symitar via SymXchange™, a services-based programming interface that enables third-party vendors and credit unions to access the platform’s core data and business rules. The integrity of data is maintained throughout any data exchange, because access to business rules and data is managed through a service layer that governs these interactions. 

By harnessing the power of Algebrik AI’s advanced, AI-powered Loan Origination System (LOS), credit unions can seamlessly transition to a modern lending experience—just like moving from traditional cable TV to Netflix. This integration delivers hyper-personalized lending experiences, slashing abandonment rates and cutting member & loan acquisition costs by leveraging core connectivity to reduce redundant data entry. With dynamic workflows, credit unions can fast-track approvals for existing members and onboard new borrowers effortlessly. Beyond traditional credit bureau checks, Algebrik AI enables smarter underwriting with real-time cash flow analysis, unlocking financial access for more members. Additionally, with read/write access to member profiles, loans can be processed and disbursed in real time—bringing lending into the digital era with instant, AI-driven decisioning. 

Applied Data Finance (“ADF”), a consumer-focused fintech company leveraging the power of people, data analytics, and technology to help consumers achieve financial success and security, today announced the appointment of Todd Rice as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Anthony Nyikos as Vice President of Growth. These strategic hires reinforce ADF’s commitment to expanding its lending and B2B consumer lending solutions, enhancing financial access for underestimated consumers, and strengthening partnerships within the financial services ecosystem focused on consumers. 

Rice joins ADF with extensive expertise in scaling consumer finance businesses and optimizing lending operations, while Nyikos brings deep experience in strategic partnerships and business development. Having previously served as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at ADF for seven years, Nyikos’ return signals a renewed focus on leveraging ADF’s AI-powered risk assessment and compliance technology to expand industry collaborations. 

With nearly 30 years of leadership in consumer finance, Rice has successfully built and led lending teams at top financial institutions. Most recently, he was the Founder and CEO of New Credit America, a consumer finance company. His prior roles include executive leadership at First USA (Chase) and Citigroup; he also served as Executive Vice President at Providian Financial (WaMu Card Services), responsible for all cardmember acquisition marketing. Rice was also an early-stage executive at Opportun. As CRO, Rice will drive ADF’s revenue strategy, ensuring AI-powered lending solutions and compliance platforms reach the right markets while maintaining ADF’s commitment to responsible financial innovation. 

Arch, a digital Alternatives Management Platform modernizing workflows, data standardization, and portfolio insights across private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, real estate, and other alternative investments, today announced a new strategic partnership with RSM US LLP (“RSM”), the leading provider of assurance, tax and consulting services for middle-market companies. This initiative equips RSM’s accounting, family office, financial services and private client teams with a transformative, tech-forward solution to navigate the dynamic complexities of alternative investments. 

According to a 2024 KKR survey of 75 family offices, chief investment officers had an average of 52% allocated toward alternative investments, an increase from 42% in 2022. As demand for private markets investments accelerates, Arch seamlessly integrates with FamilySight®, RSM’s family office data management platform, to provide advisors with a holistic, up-to-date view into clients’ private markets portfolios. Arch makes this possible by automating the time-intensive manual work traditionally associated with tracking private investments. Leveraging Arch’s first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence for summarizing both financial data and commentary from alternative investment documents, statements, and portals, this initiative is further expanding RSM’s digital experience to support real-time alternative investment portfolio monitoring. 

Automating the traditionally manual tracking of private investments, Arch collects K-1s digitally across portals, boosting productivity, enhancing decision-making, and creating better planning opportunities. Particularly painful for accounting firms like RSM, Arch focuses on providing an end-to-end tax solution, including a real time tracker for tax documents and automatically following up with asset managers for missing K-1s. 

AuthenticID, a global leader in identity verification and fraud prevention solutions, has been selected by Authvia as its trusted provider for securing digital payments. Through this partnership, AuthenticID’s identity verification platform will be integrated into Authvia’s cutting-edge Text-to-Pay and Conversational Commerce solution, setting a new standard in AI-powered payments. 

As digital payments continue to evolve, fraud prevention without adding friction is critical. Authvia’s AI-driven conversational commerce streamlines transactions through secure text-based payments and payouts. With the addition of AuthenticID’s advanced fraud detection, Authvia enhances its platform’s ability to verify users in seconds, preventing identity theft and providing businesses and consumers with a safer, more seamless payment experience. 

The combined offering provides authentication protection for a variety of payments scenarios, including high-risk transfers, account withdrawals and deposits; payments for high-value goods; and payouts from a business to a customer. Both AuthenticID and Authvia are trusted by large banks and enterprises. 

BetaNXT, a leading provider of wealth management technology solutions with real-time data capabilities and an enhanced advisor experience, has officially rolled out BetaNXT CastX, an innovative solution for efficiently managing corporate actions from end to end—and maximizing the value that investor communications can provide. 

The introduction of BetaNXT CastX marks the latest milestone in BetaNXT’s ongoing efforts to streamline workflows for corporate actions. Developed in response to feedback from brokers and advisors, it addresses common issues such as manual data entry errors, complex communication chains, and delayed notifications. Corporate actions, which include tender, exchange and conversion offers, are actions taken by publicly traded companies that have a material impact on the company and its shareholders. Historically, many financial institutions have relied on manual processes to manage corporate actions, exposing them to operational risks, errors, and delays. BetaNXT CastX automates the entire corporate actions lifecycle—from announcement data sourcing to DTCC submission to tax reporting—reducing risks, minimizing mistakes, and improving transparency and efficiency. 

BetaNXT CastX is part of BetaNXT’s broader connected ecosystem of solutions—including DataXChange, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and a cloud-first deployment model—which enables the seamless sharing of data across multiple systems. Powered by Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud, DataXChange brings together internal and external inputs to simplify the exchange of data for wealth management firms and their partners, and optimize what data can do for their businesses and clients. BetaNXT CastX has been built on DataXChange, so that advisors at wealth enterprises, and the investors they work with, can comprehensively view the corporate actions they need to take note of, and understand the impact those actions may have on investors’ portfolios.   

Conquest Planning Inc. (“Conquest”), a technology platform modernizing financial planning with customized and convenient advice, today announced a strategic partnership with CI Wealth, the Canadian wealth management division of CI Financial. Through this collaboration, advisors at CI Assante Wealth Management (“Assante”), CI Private Wealth (“CIPW”) and Aligned Capital Partners will gain access to Conquest’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered financial planning platform, which is making customized and convenient advice more accessible for all consumers. 

Conquest’s Strategic Advice Manager (SAM) leverages AI to enhance personalized financial plans that evolve with clients’ needs in real time. SAM helps advisors model various financial scenarios, presenting clients with potential outcomes of different strategies for more informed decision-making. By considering multiple factors and possible trade-offs, SAM suggests optimized strategies that balance immediate needs with long-term objectives. With SAM handling complex calculations and data analysis, advisors can focus on client interaction and strategic discussions instead of manual processes. 

Effective immediately, all Assante advisors will gain access to Conquest’s platform, which includes two key components: an advisor-led offering that allows advisors to enhance and present financial plans directly to clients, and a solution for the Assante Wealth Planning Group. 

Deaglo, a leader in FX risk management and FinTech innovation, unveils the first-ever FX Assistant, an advanced AI-driven solution that revolutionizes FX risk management for banks and businesses. The FX Assistant is built on Deaglo’s cutting-edge analytics platform, leveraging real-time pricing data from KACE, Fenics, and top-tier market sources. Designed to elevate the FX sales process, hedging execution, risk management, and improve employee productivity, the FX Assistant provides instant trade recommendations, exposure analysis, and seamless execution support, facilitating faster and smarter FX decision-making. 

The FX Assistant democratizes access to advanced analytics for FX professionals. Using machine learning, constrained optimization, and AI, it simplifies complicated analytics for users with varying levels of FX knowledge, generating thousands of intuitive and actionable reports, such as forward efficiency and margin simulations, in over 60 currencies in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. 

The FX Assistant is a constantly evolving tool with new features on the horizon. Upcoming releases will include Currency Snapshots, a quick overview of market conditions and key currency movements, the Efficiency Frontier tool, which utilizes proprietary portfolio Value at Risk (VaR) calculations and constrained optimization. Other enhancements include Trade Suggestions, an AI-powered trade tool based on market signals, and Option Optimization and Suitability Reports, for deeper risk assessment and execution strategies. 

DeFi Technologies Inc. (the “Company” or “DeFi Technologies”) (CBOE CA: DEFI) (GR: R9B) (OTC: DEFTF), a financial technology company that pioneers the convergence of traditional capital markets with the world of decentralised finance (“DeFi”), is pleased to announce that it has increased its stake in Neuronomics AG (“Neuronomics”), a Swiss asset management firm specializing in artificial intelligence and model-driven quantitative trading strategies, to 52.5% (the “Acquisition”). 

This Acquisition follows DeFi Technologies’ earlier subscription to a capital increase in Neuronomics, where the Company acquired a 10% stake. The Acquisition of the majority stake in Neuronomics further aligns with DeFi Technologies’ strategy to expand its presence in artificial intelligence, asset management and trading sectors while diversifying its revenue streams. This strategic acquisition complements DeFi Technologies’ existing initiatives, including the DeFi Alpha arbitrage trading desk, which will benefit from Neuronomics’ technological expertise and market insights. 

Neuronomics, founded in Switzerland, has established itself as a leader in asset management by developing advanced quantitative trading strategies based on artificial intelligence (“AI”) and computational neuroscience. The firm holds an asset management license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”), enabling it to manage and administer financial assets on behalf of clients. Neuronomics’ research-driven approach focuses on two key areas: AI and Computational Neuroscience in Finance. 

The EY organization today announces the launch of new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to its EY Blockchain Analyzer: Smart Contract and Token Review (SC&TR) tool. The SC&TR tool is designed to help enhance vulnerability detection in smart contracts through greater code coverage and streamline the contract simulation process for faster, more robust smart contract reviews. 

The advanced AI feature enables users to automate and simulate the entire contract review process using natural language prompts and the tool’s testing engine, enhancing efficiency. Trained on an extensive library of existing tests and simulations, the feature supports the reviewer and improves the ability to detect vulnerabilities. This automation allows clients to achieve higher test coverage while leveraging the same number of resources, reducing review times also for EY teams by 50%1. This can better position businesses to deploy smart contracts more effectively and more confidently. 

According to Allied Market Research, the smart contract market is expected to grow to $2.5 billion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate of 29.6% from 2023 to 2032. As such, the risk of hidden vulnerabilities within smart contracts, which often go undetected through traditional test methods, could lead to increased security risks and also financial losses. 

FIS® (NYSE: FIS), a global leader in financial technology, today announced the launch of FIS Treasury and Risk Manager – Treasury GPT, a proprietary generative AI-driven product support tool embedded within its FIS Treasury and Risk Manager – Integrity Edition (“Integrity”). In collaboration with Microsoft, the tool uses Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service for enhanced data and risk management, and quickly generates responses on queries pertaining to product usability, client configuration, policies and best practices for use of the solution. As the first such solution for FIS’ Treasury Management offerings and one of the first for the treasury management industry as a whole, the announcement underscores FIS’ commitment to unlocking efficiency and value for money in motion, providing treasurers with innovative tools to more efficiently manage risk, combat cost pressures and drive growth. 

According to PwC, 89% of CEOs using generative AI in their businesses say it will impact their business model in the next three years, illustrating the benefits that businesses are finding with the technology once put to use effectively. As a pioneering solution in the industry, Treasury GPT references product documentation and uses machine learning through Azure OpenAI Service to quickly provide FIS users with high-quality, informed guidance, enabling them to focus less on low-value administrative tasks and more on liquidity management and strategy. 

Notably, Treasury GPT also won the “Best Solution Innovation in AI” category at the 2025 Treasury Management International Awards for Innovation & Excellence. 

Flex, the fintech company that empowers business owners to automate their back offices and grow, today announced it has raised $225 million in equity and debt funding to accelerate the buildout of its payments infrastructure and personal finance software for business owners. The capital raise includes a $25 million equity round led by Titanium Ventures, with participation from Companyon Ventures, Florida Funders, MS&AD Ventures, AAF Management and First Look Partners, and a $200 million credit facility from Victory Park Capital. Yash Patel, General Partner at Titanium Ventures, will join Flex’s Board of Directors. 

Many businesses do not have sufficient time, resources, or personnel to efficiently handle back-office functions. Meanwhile, targeted solutions are often fragmented and piecemeal. Flex provides a financial ecosystem that bundles payment automation, expense management, net 60 credit cards and banking. 

The capital raise will support the acceleration of Flex’s payments ecosystem, particularly its AI-powered AP Automation, which today, alongside credit, debit, and B2B payments, is processing over $1 billion in annual total payment volume. The funding will also be used to build out Flex’s consumer arm, which will allow business owners to manage their personal finances with the same power, control and seamless user experience as they do for their businesses. 

Fractional AI, which builds bespoke generative AI solutions to transform businesses, today announced the launch of its generative artificial intelligence diligence service, a specialized offering designed to help private equity firms and enterprises evaluate generative AI risks, opportunities, and strategic impact during M&A transactions. 

The launch of generative AI diligence is a natural evolution of Fractional AI’s expertise, providing investors with the technical and strategic insights needed to evaluate generative AI’s impact on business performance. With a strong track record of building applied generative AI solutions for enterprises, Fractional AI has helped companies unlock efficiencies through automation and launch new revenue streams with generative AI products. As generative AI continues to transform industries, investors must evaluate how it influences a target company’s value, competitive edge, and long-term sustainability. 

Generative AI diligence is a structured, expert-led approach for private equity firms and corporate development teams evaluating generative AI within their deal processes – whether assessing a company’s existing capabilities, uncovering opportunities for generative AI-driven value creation, or determining the risk that generative AI poses to a business’s competitive moat. Traditional IT due diligence typically centers around infrastructure, security, and software architecture, but misses critical generative AI-specific considerations that can lead to overlooked opportunities and hidden risks. With generative AI now a key driver of both cost efficiencies and revenue growth, generative AI diligence gives investors a clearer understanding of how generative AI impacts a business, helping them make more informed, forward-looking investment decisions in an increasingly generative AI-powered economy. 

FutureVault, the leading provider of AI-powered Digital Vaults and pioneer of the Client Life Management Vault™ for financial institutions has successfully raised US $3 million of equity capital bringing the total raised since inception to US $31 million. 

Founder & Executive Chairman G Scott Paterson and CEO Daniel Kenny both participated in the financing along with several existing shareholders and selected new investors. This latest investment underscores the excitement behind FutureVault’s mission to transform document and data intelligence for financial services. 

FutureVault’s digital vault platform provides a material value proposition for a wide range of stakeholders and constituents, including advisors and their clients as well as management, operations and compliance executives enabling standalone value as well as enterprise-wide value as a result of greater internal connectivity, client centric data and document intelligence and workflow efficiencies. 

H2O.ai, the leader in open-source Generative AI and the most accurate Predictive AI platforms, today announced the industry’s first Model Risk Management (MRM) framework for Generative AI, bringing rigorous validation, compliance, and transparency to Generative AI applications in financial services, banking, and other highly regulated sectors. 

As AI adoption accelerates, particularly in regulated industries, ensuring the trustworthiness, fairness, and reliability of Generative AI models and applications is paramount. H2O.ai’s MRM solution provides a structured evaluation framework that integrates automated testing and evaluation with human calibration, model weakness and failure identification, bias detection, and explainability tools, offering enterprises the ability to validate and mitigate AI-related risks before deployment. 

Financial institutions and banks operate under strict regulatory guidelines requiring model transparency, robustness, and explainability to mitigate risks like biased decision-making, hallucinated outputs, or security vulnerabilities. 

Jump, a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for financial advisors and other financial services providers, today announced its approval as an official technology vendor for Osaic, Inc. (“Osaic”), one of the nation’s largest providers of wealth management solutions. This strategic relationship brings Jump’s advanced AI platform to Osaic’s expansive network of wealth management professionals, empowering them with tools designed to streamline workflows, strengthen compliance and significantly reduce administrative burdens. 

Jump offers several key benefits to Osaic’s network of financial professionals. Streamlined workflows allow advisors to spend more time building client relationships and less on manual data entry, while AI-powered note taking delivers accurate documentation, reducing regulatory risk. Additionally, by minimizing administrative tasks, Jump supports scalability—allowing financial professionals to efficiently manage growing client bases without increasing their administrative workload. This partnership reinforces Jump and Osaic’s shared commitment to empowering advisors with advanced technology that supports heightened productivity and creates a more efficient, client-focused experience. 

Jump has quickly emerged as a leader in AI-driven efficiency for financial advisors, recently earning the highest market share results in the latest T3 survey’s Transcription/Text Capture Services and Onboarding and Proposal Generation Tools categories compared to other advisor AI tools. In addition, the platform received ‘extraordinary’ high user satisfaction ratings. Since its founding in 2023, Jump has quickly established itself as an essential productivity tool for advisory firms of all sizes—ranging from solo practitioners to large enterprise-level registered investment advisors (RIAs) and independent broker-dealers (IBDs). The company recently closed a $20 million Series A funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $24.6 million. 

Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ), the global modern card issuing platform that enables embedded finance solutions for the world’s innovators, today announced that it has become the issuer processor for Spendesk Financial Services (SFS) in Europe, the payment institution powering and fully owned by Spendesk. Spendesk, Europe’s leading spend management and procurement solution, leverages this combined technology to enable its medium-sized business customers to monitor budgets, customise spend controls, and boost efficiency. 

Spendesk is the leading spend management and procurement platform that transforms company spending. By simplifying procurement, payment cards, expense management, invoice processing, and accounting automation, its single, AI-powered solution makes efficient spending easy for employees and gives finance leaders the full visibility and control they need. Spendesk’s financial offerings are enabled by Spendesk Financial Services, offering real-time card processing, secure transactions, and spend controls (in collaboration with Marqeta), alongside expense management and a new procure-to-pay solution. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with existing accounting and financial software through its APIs and native integrations. 

Through Marqeta’s flexible, all-in-one platform, Spendesk Financial Services has easily integrated Marqeta’s card processing services into its Core Banking Platform, providing its customers with both physical and virtual cards that can be tailored to each business’s needs. This integration enhances Spendesk’s complex B2B spend management by providing dynamic spend controls that efficiently and securely screen and authorise expenses in real time. Thanks to Marqeta’s platform, managers at companies using Spendesk can restrict card usage to specific times and spending categories, flagging any unusual transactions and allowing them to immediately approve or deny a transaction if necessary, resulting in significantly less friction. 

martini.ai, the leading AI-driven credit intelligence platform, has unveiled its latest innovation, Scenario Builder, a powerful new feature that allows financial professionals to model economic events and stress test portfolios in real time. 

Market risks are not only increasing in number but also growing in their potential to disrupt portfolio performance at an unprecedented scale. Global credit markets have seen heightened volatility due to rising interest rates, geopolitical instability, and rapid shifts in economic policy. Traditional risk assessment methods often fail to capture the real-time interconnectedness of these macroeconomic forces, leaving credit investors exposed to unexpected downturns. 

Scenario Builder enables private credit investors, asset managers, and lenders to stay ahead of these challenges by translating uncertainty into actionable insights, allowing them to stress test portfolios and adjust risk exposure before market shocks occur. 

NICE (Nasdaq: NICE) today announced that Certified Languages International, a full-service language company specializing in on-demand interpreting and document translation services supporting 230 languages worldwide, has selected NICE CXone Mpower as its platform of choice to upgrade its customer service operations. By migrating from its legacy infrastructure, the company aims to enhance workflow automation, unify its knowledge base and ensure seamless support for its agents and interpreters —delivering exceptional experiences at every interaction. 

Certified Languages International handles thousands of inbound client inquiries daily, seeking interpretation services across every industry including healthcare, financial services, retail, and BPO. Previously relying on multiple vendors for separate CX needs, the company will unify its global operations and knowledge base with the CXone Mpower platform, creating a single source of truth for agents and interpreters. With the powerful CXone Mpower Essentials Suite, agents can quickly identify the required language, check interpreter availability based on skillset, and seamlessly connect clients to the most appropriate interpreter. 

As part of a multi-year technology transformation program, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) announced today it has expanded its strategic relationship with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, Nasdaq: TCS) to enhance its global securities settlements platform, which spans 99 global markets. 

Northern Trust has leveraged TCS BaNCS™ for corporate actions and income processing since 2017. This latest collaboration gives Northern Trust access to the TCS BaNCS™ Global Securities Platform which offers multi-entity, multi-market and multi-asset class capabilities to help create an integrated securities back office and streamline trade processing and settlements. 

Using the TCS BaNCS™ Global Securities Platform, Northern Trust will be able to further standardize its settlement data and processes, as well as enhance AI and analytics capabilities for both digital and traditional assets. The platform will offer scalability and resilience. In addition to harmonizing global settlement processes, the platform will comply with regional practices using multi-entity, multi-currency, and ISO 15022/ISO 20022 compliant technology. 

Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PLTR) and TWG Global (TWG) today announced a joint venture to redefine AI deployment in banking, investment management, insurance and other financial services. By pairing Palantir’s unmatched AI infrastructure with TWG’s deep expertise in business operations and financial services, this initiative will enable financial institutions to integrate AI at scale—moving beyond fragmented, piecemeal solutions to a singular, fully embedded, enterprise-wide approach. 

Led by Palantir CEO Alex Karp and TWG Global’s Mark Walter, Thomas Tull, and Chief Data & Analytics Officer Drew Cukor—the joint venture brings together a team with a deeply established history of collaboration, spanning over two decades in deploying AI at scale across high-stakes defense, government, and commercial applications. Over the past year, TWG and Palantir have actively worked together to embed AI into TWG’s own companies, refining their approach and proving its impact. This is the next step in that effort—a battle-tested, operational AI offering designed to revolutionize financial services and insurance and accelerate industry-wide adoption. 

More than a mere partnership, this initiative represents a fundamental rethinking of AI’s role in business—moving beyond a tool managed by IT teams to an “artificial workforce” integrated into every core function. Leaders who understand strategy, human capital, and operational impact must take ownership of AI—not as a side project, but as the backbone of their business’s growth and resilience. This isn’t optional. As industries shift at an unprecedented pace, AI is the defining factor of who leads and who falls behind in the next era of global competitiveness. 

Practifi, the leading CRM purpose-built for wealth management firms, today announced its commitment to integrating artificial intelligence (AI) across its platform, empowering financial advisors to enhance client relationships, streamline operations and drive new levels of growth. This strategic move reinforces Practifi’s vision of providing a cutting-edge CRM solution that anticipates the future needs of the wealth management industry, positioning Practifi as the hub of meaningful, data-driven client relationships. 

Practifi’s AI strategy will make advisory firms more efficient, responsive and effective by enabling real-time data analysis, automating content creation and triggering workflow actions without manual intervention. AI features will be introduced based on practical benefits, increasing accuracy and improving scalability, with new capabilities rolling out over time. 

These features align with Practifi’s core AI pillars: boosting efficiency through automation, enhancing client personalization with tailored insights and strengthening client management with intelligent recommendations. 

Public, the leading investing platform with technology that makes building a multi-asset portfolio fast, frictionless, and secure, and Capitalize, the industry’s first platform for digital retirement account transfers, today announced a new partnership to help Americans and Public members better save for retirement. 

Under the partnership, Public has integrated Capitalize’s leading Rollover API to help its members effortlessly transfer legacy 401(k)s into Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) directly on the Public platform, allowing them to better keep track of and grow their retirement savings over time in the same place as where they invest. 

The need to help individual savers easily find and roll over legacy retirement accounts is more urgent than ever. With an estimated $1.65 trillion in assets left behind in 401(k) accounts and 54% of Americans struggling to find their legacy retirement accounts, the traditional rollover process continues to fail everyday savers. Research indicates that only 22% of savers can complete a rollover without assistance, and 42% report the process takes two or more months to complete. 

Universal Ads, the one-stop TV advertising platform simplifying access to the premium video category, and Ramp, the financial operations platform designed to save businesses time and money, today announced UA’s first-of-its-kind partnership giving Ramp’s 30,000+ customers access to premium advertising inventory through the new Universal Ads ad-buying platform. 

Today, Ramp helps tens of thousands of companies across the U.S. grow efficiently through financial software that eliminates wasteful spending and automates tedious tasks. Now, Universal Ads will enable direct access to brand-safe, premium video, so these companies can tap into TV’s performance and accelerate their growth even further. 

With this partnership, Ramp customers will have the ability to reach qualified audiences alongside premium content from major networks including A+E, AMC Networks, DIRECTV, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Roku, TelevisaUnivision, Warner Bros., Discovery, and Xumo, with more to come. 

The TCW Group, a leading global asset management firm, announced today an expanded collaboration with Microsoft to leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Building on the early successes of the relationship, TCW is now delivering innovative solutions for complex front office applications, including portfolio management by integrating Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Cosmos DB and Azure AI Search. 

Among the various use-cases being explored is the application of AI to streamline the analysis and management of complex investments, particularly securitized products. These instruments are characterized by extensive documentation, diverse regulations, investment exclusions, sustainability metrics, cashflow triggers, default provisions, and other intricate terms. By harnessing advanced AI technologies, TCW is developing a scalable solution that enables investment teams to efficiently identify opportunities from a broad universe of deals across jurisdictions, enhance surveillance capabilities, and meet the operational demands of these sophisticated instruments – empowering them to make informed decisions and drive both innovation and agility in portfolio management. 

To date, the integration between TCW and Microsoft has already demonstrated the transformative potential of AI. Following the successful collaboration between Microsoft’s data scientists and AI engineers with TCW’s engineers on several operational efficiencies, the team has now ventured into exploring opportunities in the investment space. 

ThetaRay, a global leader in Cognitive AI financial crime compliance, today announced the appointment of Brian Gilman as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Gilman will lead ThetaRay’s global marketing strategy, driving brand growth, market expansion, and the continued promotion of its pioneering Cognitive AI solutions. Based in ThetaRay’s New York office, he will play a pivotal role in advancing ThetaRay’s commitment to the U.S. market and increasing global awareness of its transformative AI-driven approach to combating financial crime. 

Gilman is a seasoned marketing executive with a proven track record in scaling high-growth technology companies. With expertise spanning artificial intelligence, machine learning, and technology convergence, he has led strategic marketing initiatives that have driven significant revenue growth and market impact. Prior to joining ThetaRay, he served as CMO at IntelePeer and held leadership roles at Vonage, Polycom, Vidyo, and Vitech Systems Group, where he spearheaded international marketing efforts that led to secure top industry recognitions, including Gartner Magic Quadrant placements. 

Gilman will focus on accelerating ThetaRay’s market leadership by reinforcing the unique advantages of its Cognitive AI-powered solutions, which help banks and fintechs detect and report sophisticated financial crime, including money laundering, sanctions violations, and human trafficking. 

Trust & Will, the nation’s leading digital estate planning platform, today announced the successful close of its $25M+ Series C funding round. The round was led by Moderne Ventures in partnership with their financial and strategic advisor FT Partners, with participation from Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, UBS Next, Erie Strategic Ventures, and other strategic investors. This investment strengthens Trust & Will’s mission to make estate planning more accessible and affordable for all, further solidifying its position as an industry leader with more than one million Americans who have started their legacy planning on the platform. 

The new investment will expand Trust & Will’s SaaS platform to provide financial advisors, attorneys, real estate professionals, member organizations, NPOs, and businesses with enhanced tools to provide their clients with seamless, multi-generational planning while building trust and value in their relationships. The company will also strengthen its data infrastructure, leveraging insights from over one million users to drive innovation, develop advanced financial tools, foster partnerships, and create solutions tailored to evolving customer needs. 

This round will also support continued investment in artificial intelligence, which is fundamental to the future of estate planning. Already embedded in the platform, AI will further enhance the individual estate planning process by analyzing existing plans, delivering personalized recommendations, and providing real-time updates.  

YCharts, a leading investment research and client engagement platform trusted by financial professionals across North America, today announced the launch of AI Chat, a next-generation AI-powered tool designed to enhance research workflows, improve efficiency, and drive better client engagement. 

YCharts continues to deliver innovative solutions that help firms grow smarter. AI Chat builds on this momentum, providing financial professionals with faster access to insights and streamlined workflows. 

With AI Chat, users can type a prompt into the search bar or navigate to the AI Chat tool to receive real-time responses powered by indexed financial databases. Users can refine queries by selecting specific data sources, including YCharts Data, SEC Filings, Financial News, and proprietary research from enterprise partners. By consolidating multiple data sources into a single interface, AI Chat helps professionals find answers faster and focus more on strategic decision-making. 

Zeplyn, the AI-native workflow intelligence platform for wealth management firms, today announced the launch of a new suite of practice management capabilities designed to improve operational efficiency and unlock growth opportunities. Built on AI, the new features leverage insights captured during client meetings and extend them into new workflows that give firms visibility into actionable trends and streamlines the client engagement experience even more, all while maintaining compliance requirements. 

Reinforcing the company’s commitment to rebuild the wealth management experience from an AI-native perspective, the new suite introduces more than 15 new features, including an advisor hub, advanced meeting preparation and compliance checklists. 

Zocks, a privacy-first AI platform for financial advisors that analyzes conversations with clients to capture key information, and integrates with key business and records systems to accelerate workflows, today announced it has raised a $13.8 million Series A round led by Motive Ventures with participation from existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. Additional investors in the round include Expanse Venture Partners, Entrée Capital, and 14Peaks. The investment will accelerate Zocks’ mission to empower advisory firms with data-driven insights while maintaining the personal touch essential to client relationships. 

Since launching in early 2024, Zocks has experienced explosive growth, onboarding over 1,000 advisory firms to its platform. The company has established partnerships with industry-leading fintech platforms Wealthbox, Redtail, and Practifi, as well as notable enterprise clients and partners that include Carson Group, Osaic, RFG Advisory and Cambridge Financial Group. 

The funding will drive Zocks’ rapid expansion across product development, team growth, and go-to-market efforts. Over the next 12 months, the company plans to enhance its AI capabilities by further developing its AI agents that automate time-intensive workflows, such as email responses, account applications, and form processing. Zocks will also introduce advanced analytics features, enabling firms to surface insights across their entire book of business. Additionally, the company plans to explore expansion into the European market.