Money Matters Episode 337 – They Didn’t Start with AI | Valarie Vest & Sean Van Moorleghem on Culture, Capacity & Digital Associates

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: [00:00:00] What if AI didn't replace financial professionals but made them more human? One firm didn't just imagine it, they build it and the kicker, they didn't lay off a single employee. I'm joined by Valerie Vest, chief Experience Officer at Cambridge and Sean Van Mogul. Am I saying that correctly? Sean, I should have asked You

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Oh, good.

Sean Van Moorleghem: it real fast.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Perfect. Okay. And you're the firm's chief Technology officer. Together, they have led one of the boldest AI integrations that we've seen in financial services, reducing a 20 minute account opening process down to just second.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: But here's what makes this story different. They did it without changing their workflows, and they did it without compromising quality. And most importantly, they did it without eliminating a single job. Sean, Valerie, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Valarie: having us.

Sean Van Moorleghem: great to be here,

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Absolutely. I don't usually have to do this. I'm gonna put a disclaimer. Uh, Cambridge is [00:01:00] my broker dealer, so I've got, I don't normally say that on a show, but I've got that, uh, skin in the game here. So I, I love, I'm super excited to see Cambridge kind of leading the way with this. As we're all going down that AI rabbit hole.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Um, to see Cambridge roll this out and, and just excited for that. , Let's go right into it here. So, Val, we, we put together an article after this, um, uh, new. Integration or platform or what, I don't even know what to call it. The account opening. Right. Uh, once that rolled out, we, we did an article where we, uh, interviewed you guys about it, and one of the things that you described was the origin of this project.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Not as an aha moment, but a what if moment. Can you take us back to that AI strategy session? What shifted for you in that room?

Valarie: will tell you a little secret. I think it was Sean's first week, maybe day,

Valarie: first

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Oh.

Sean Van Moorleghem: Yeah.

Valarie: comes in and we're sitting around, we're [00:02:00] having a meeting. We, we were assembled specifically talking about ai. We had been, um, working with different providers and we wanted to bring them together to share with each other and really collaborate. And they were all open to doing so and so we just started talking and, you know. The technology's changing so fast. And so someone in the room started talking about agent ai it was just this like, almost like asking like, could we use it here? You know what I mean? And he was like, yeah, well, you know, you could do that.

Valarie: I'm like, well, what if it was like this? It was, um, it was kind of like having to wrap my brain around it, you know? So, um, it was pretty exciting. And then you started thinking about like. Like you went from what if, maybe then to aha. Like, oh, you know, like, well, what if we could use it here? Well, what if we could use it here?

Valarie: And then that excitement and then having to bring it back down, okay, we gotta [00:03:00] get started. But it was definitely exciting. And to think about, you know, when we had met probably six months before that, this wasn't a possibility. And so it was just, um, being open to how fast things are changing and to trying things out and being like, what if, what if this could work?

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that Sean. Talk about baptism by fire. This was day one.

Sean Van Moorleghem: day one. Uh, yeah. I didn't recognize. Um, funny enough, sitting in the room, literally the, my first day and I didn't recognize or pick up on that. Uh, it wa it was kind of day one also of the program. Right. And that we were, uh, that we were that new at it. so I was excited about it. Uh, it felt, um, man, we were gonna, we were gonna go after it, right?

Sean Van Moorleghem: Uh, there was some, there was some good healthy pressure, right? Our business is growing. Um, we were worried about, uh, and concerned about how we were gonna handle workload over the summer months with kind of our expected [00:04:00] growth. Um, and so it was kind of like, Hey, we've, we've either going to have to look at, um, you know, hiring temporary workforce. some other mechanism, or we're gonna have to look at, uh, you know, some, some more, let's call it futuristic, uh, type, type, uh, solutions and, and think bigger. And so, yeah, it was great to be in the throes of it and uh, for it to be like, yeah, we're not just gonna talk about it and theorize on it. We're going for it.

Sean Van Moorleghem: So.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love it. That's, I, I've talked to many different companies at different stages, and some of them are still sitting around and groups trying to figure out, well, how does this work in the company? Where does it fit? Where does it land? The fact that you've rolled something out that's working is, is, we're, we're ahead of the game there with that.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. Why was it. Important for Cambridge to start with a problem that didn't require a human touch. What did that decision unlock in terms of team trust and adoption?

Valarie: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll start there. I, you know, our, [00:05:00] um. If you were to ask me what's, you know, our most, what's our secret sauce? I'm gonna tell you, it's our people. it's our interactions with our financial, um, professionals like you, Chris. And so, so it's really, and, and no one got into this business to do paperwork or to like do data entry. And so it's really, we wanted to take a piece, a sliver. We knew we needed to start small. So, um, it was taking that sliver of someplace where we're doing a lot of manual work of moving, you know, data and or paper reading that, and how can we that out of the mix and not just do it faster, but free our people up.

Valarie: As, as Sean was saying, I mean, it, it's a great problem to have, to have this growth coming at us, but we also wanna continue to do a really great job for all of our current financial. and, and so, um, this was a solution that I think allowed us to continue [00:06:00] both of that to, to grow and to really innovate.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: . You know, the idea of starting small. You, you, with, with ai you can go really big, right? Uh. But really just picking something off small and starting with one thing. As an advisor, you hit the, the nail on the head. I do not like paperwork. Paperwork is is no fun. I don't think any advisor, if we're being truthful, likes paperwork, but it's one of those necessary things.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: So I love that you, you picked this, many companies talk about AI in theoretical terms. What made this moment feel real for you both?

Sean Van Moorleghem: So, uh, I guess I'll start Val, but, uh, and jump in here. But like for me, it was the fact that, uh, we had a real, uh, tight business case, a real tight use case that we wanted to go after. Um, it seemed achievable. It did. Didn't seem too farfetched. Uh, it felt like we could get, um, buy off, not necessarily from, [00:07:00] uh, the executives in the groups that we sit with, but, you know, the frontline associates would actually be relieved to have some of this work, uh, off of their desks or off of their plate or off of their nights and weekends in a lot of cases.

Sean Van Moorleghem: Right? If, uh, if there is a, a kind of a, a surge in, in volume and, and, uh, and throughput. So all the, I guess. was nodding, you know,

Sean Van Moorleghem: was

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Hmm.

Sean Van Moorleghem: that's, really powerful, especially as you're trying to break down right? Of uh, something that might be seen as threatening.

Sean Van Moorleghem: If everyone's like, yes, please help me with this, it just makes it that much easier.

Valarie: I think we've also been, this wasn't our beginning with ai, so, you know, with a lot of our financial professionals, uh, we have embraced, you know, note taking and, you know, the copilots and the chat GPTs for, you know, the day-to-day efficiencies and, and done that work. We've also started to work on creating, you know, our own. [00:08:00] AI assistant that, you know, is knowledgeable on processes and procedures and compliance manuals and all those things that, um, we call Indy for Independence. so we had started that work already. Like I said, when we first met, we were meeting with these different AI. and partners and sharing best practices.

Valarie: So I think the other thing was this wasn't new for our associates. It wasn't new for our financial professionals and it was just, you know, kind of that next step that we could take. And it was exciting to think about being on that front edge.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I, I know when new ideas roll out, there's that resistance with a capital R, right? And, and getting, uh, getting buy-in really from people above us and from as, um, advisors, right? But we're in one of those industries where you've got all of these. Architect, all of these, uh, advisors, they're entrepreneurs.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: It's open architecture. So whether we wanted to have this discussion or not, they're gonna run all of this stuff up. The flagpole, [00:09:00] the, the fact that Cambridge is there to catch it, to vet it, uh, this isn't your first rodeo. You guys are, are working on indie, the AI assistant there. I'd love that. I think this is a, a, a great way to, to come at it.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Now, pivoting a little bit, Sean, you, in the article you mentioned that. AG AI scaled horizontally and didn't require workflow changes. That's rare. How did you approach implementation without breaking what already worked?

Sean Van Moorleghem: That was, I mean, when you talk about the speed of implementation, that was some of the. Uh, benefit that we got when we talk about not kind of re-engineering your business process, whether it's good or it's on the other end of the scale, which, you know, maybe it's a, it's not a great or very efficient business process. Um, you, you take it as it is instead of going through that, that, uh, that re-engineering process. So, uh, we use existing platforms. Uh, we. We did have to build a few new integration points, but it's the same platforms that our employees use, right. And, uh, on a day-to-day [00:10:00] basis. And so it wasn't anything new from that, uh, construct.

Sean Van Moorleghem: We knew how that process worked. It was ingrained. It's been tried and true. Um, and then, uh, we, and then the agent AI provides that. That scale that you mentioned over the top of it. So, uh, the ability to spin up, um, new workers or, uh, new, new, uh, new bandwidth I guess you might say. So things like cloud

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Okay.

Sean Van Moorleghem: that's a game changer.

Sean Van Moorleghem: We can throttle the technology resources that we're putting to the process, uh, based off the demand that we're seeing from. Uh, the workflow, right? So, um, you know, in periods of, of, uh, higher workflow, we spin up new, um, new tenants and allows us to have more digital workers. Um, on the flip side, when it's lower, we can spin that down and, uh, and so that's, uh, that's, that's really a, that a big cost savings and, and a nice, uh, feature of some of these newer technologies that are coming out.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that?

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Valve thoughts on that?

Valarie: was gonna say, you know, one of the benefits, you know, at first I wanna be [00:11:00] honest, I was a little hesitant 'cause I'm like, I'm sure this process isn't great. Um, and we

Valarie: it,

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Yeah.

Valarie: now looking, I'm glad. One, it helped us get to market faster because we just embraced that, but then it also allowed us, so I call it a digital associate, um, and it allowed our human associates to better supervise the digital associates.

Valarie: So the process of training the digital associate, um, the process of managing, you know, the quality, all those types of things. is no different for that digital associate than it is for our human associates. And because the processes were the same, it was very clear. It wasn't confusing. Um, you know, for the team, you know, I always tell the person that's, you know, the supervisor of these digital, um, digital associates.

Valarie: I'm like, you're like the first person at Cambridge to have, know, digital associates. It's kind of exciting, it's a, you know, it's, doing QA the same way she would with a brand new human [00:12:00] associate.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. Yeah. QA is important. Redeploying some of these, uh, uh, the human beings to manage these. I'm thinking of an org chart that has the agents under it instead of employees, but you're freeing up bandwidth for the human beings to go back and then QA and make sure that our processes are good and everything.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: So that's. That's awesome. I love this. You talked about, you know, speed of implementation, being able to get something out there. Uh, you know, things are always have to be adjusted, right? But getting something out that building off of scaffolding that already existed. So not necessarily reinventing the wheel, but repositioning stuff.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I'd love that. I love that. Now, when you talk about agents learning the human workflow, this is something that you wrote about in the article. What does that actually look like in practice?

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: [00:13:00] Mm-hmm.

Valarie: the digital associate to take. And um, it was checking that work on the back end. So, you know, and I, I mean, I'm, it's the same cues, um, you know. When there, there's times when, just like with a human associate, they're gonna push, push that out and not be able to complete it because there's, you know, a nigo not in good order. Um, you know, the same thing happens both human and digital, and we can leverage the same processes for both. So obviously if the digital associate kicks something out, we have a human come back in and finish it up.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Yeah,

Valarie: made it a lot easier at all levels. For us to really be able to, to move quickly because it was something that the teams know, know it better than, you know, Sean and I did because they're

Valarie: every single day.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: They're living it. They're in the trenches [00:14:00] with.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: it.

Sean Van Moorleghem: It's been consistent for a long time. We didn't change their world. We just kind of added capacity in a sense, uh, to it. And so to Val's point, those supervisors, um, you know, are getting, uh, you know, the exceptions that they do with a human, just, just a digital that's leading to that exception.

Sean Van Moorleghem: And when there are exceptions and quality checking like they would a, a, a human associate or, or a full-time employee. So yeah, it's exciting to, uh, it's a kind of exciting to see. I mean, they've named. Uh, these associates or these digital associates, right,

Valarie: Yeah, they've got,

Sean Van Moorleghem: of the family.

Valarie: for

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Nice.

Valarie: it's kind of fun, you know, we're still, I mean, I would say we're still learning. Um, 'cause, you know, we're still iterating. Um. like every day, you know, we'll say what the, what the person did, just like you would do with a human. What's your productivity today?

Valarie: You know, what did you, um, I like kick out and not be able to process. And so we're looking at, on that on a daily basis and, um, seeing what sometimes, again, it's age [00:15:00] agenda, ai. So things that we don't know. I, I think I talked about this in the article, but, um, you know, it, there's good and bad. So we had to set, we actually ended up creating two. um, we were using two different parts of a process, and the first one was, um, taking what we turned in and, um, applying it to the wrong part of the wrong part of the process. So we've created two, um, you know, kind of specializing in that piece of the process so

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Hmm.

Valarie: um, take free will, um,

Valarie: and, make a change, um, in terms of what we want 'em to do.

Valarie: So.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I am smiling 'cause I hear you have specialists on tap. Why? Why not create a second one that that's really good at whatever the second use case is? I love that. I love that. I think it's a really good answer that, that both of you gave. Valerie, you started with when I asked you, you know, how to train this and you were literally saying, you know, some of the same stuff that we're using for human beings.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: And I know as an advisor or for [00:16:00] companies, enterprise level companies, we always talk about SOPs, right? But do we actually go back and build our SOPs? I'm thinking if we have to train these aian, uh, ai. It's helping us go back and look at ours. SOPs, Do we have a good process that we can communicate, whether it's a human being or whether it's an ai.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Uh, so that part of it, I love that idea. Um, going back and checking for quality. And when we're in the world of NIGOs, there's always gonna be exceptions, right? There's always gonna be stuff that bubbles up, but then having human beings go back in, just like we were doing before, but going back and only really looking at the exceptions.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: If there's stuff that's going by with no issues and it's able to to be done this way, that's, that's fantastic.

Valarie: The NIGOs. So what my favorite story on this is we come in one day, we get the report, it processed X many, and it spit out, normally it was spitting out between 30 and 50, and it was like hundreds. And we're like, oh my gosh,

Valarie: And

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Oh.

Valarie: was is someone had submitted. All and had [00:17:00] made the same error. And so instead of having, you know, 20 different human associates call out to that financial professional and say, Hey, you know, this is missing, this is missing.

Valarie: You know, 'cause it

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Hmm.

Valarie: thing missing. We made one proactive phone call out to that financial professional and said, Hey, this block of business that you just submitted to us was missing this thing.

Valarie: They were able to correct it and get it right through it, and it was such a better experience than had it gone, you know, individually. Based on how long it would

Valarie: the

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Mm-hmm.

Valarie: you know, did it in seconds and found all 200 of those errors right away.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Pumped them into one thing, made one call versus 20 different association, uh, associates making 20 different calls.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: . Um, well let, so let me ask you this from the more technically curious, can you walk us through what kind of infrastructure our cloud architecture makes this flexibility possible?

Sean Van Moorleghem: I can take that one. So, uh, Chris, you know, there's, um. The, the secret sauce is really [00:18:00] some of that Cambridge

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Yeah.

Sean Van Moorleghem: It's a pretty commodity stack, right? So you're talking about, uh, we're talking about like Microsoft Azure. Uh, we're talking about publicly available, uh, large language models or

Sean Van Moorleghem: like

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sean Van Moorleghem: um, python coding languages. Uh, we're running over, uh, cloud technologies, like you mentioned, distributed cloud data platforms like Snowflake and things like that. So, um. You know, we're not. Cambridge is not getting into the business of building their own

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Right.

Sean Van Moorleghem: what's out there and, and readily available, uh, utilizing of best of breed, uh, with each of those, uh, at each layer, right?

Sean Van Moorleghem: The data layer, uh, kind of like our interface layer and then our, uh, uh, customer facing layer. So, um, so yeah, that's kind of what's in the, the mix there. And, uh, some of those technologies were new or newer to. Uh, but they're newer in general, but they're newer to Cambridge as we got into it, uh, you know, in the spring and summer months.

Sean Van Moorleghem: So it, uh, yeah, it's, uh, [00:19:00] now it's just including those and building those into our tech stack and, and ensuring that, uh, we have the skills to, uh, continue development and support of, uh, of the solution.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love it and as a moving target, as we know, but I, I, I love that it's, it's uh. a, big, I can see a big picture here. Let's talk about really reframe, reframing AI as. An enabler of human service. Some worry that AI will replace human jobs, but you've added roles not eliminated them. What advice would you give to other leaders who's worried about team disruption?

Valarie: I would. Um, we've de I mean, I think Sean, we both have new roles, new, so it's, it's, um, you know, for associates to think about, my work might be different. So that is, I mean, the, the, um, the truth of that. But, um, we are looking at, you know, different, different roles. You know, we need people who can consult on AI and understand [00:20:00] and, you know, help do, you know, help our financial professionals.

Valarie: How do you implement it into your tech stack, you know, with the things that we make available, uh, how do we help our associates figure out how to best leverage it? And so, you know, or like the associate that we have that's, you know, leading this, these digital associates, you know, it, it changes up their day a little bit.

Valarie: um, so. Those that are embracing it are seeing it as a lot of, um, it's kind of fun, you know, it's invigorating the, the newness of it and to just to be on the cutting edge of it. And I think because we are creating new roles, because, you know, as we have open roles, we're looking for people that have, you know, AI background, I think. One, they're able to get that skillset here at Cambridge and then two by, you know, as we fill or maybe bring people in from the outside. It just helps 'em grow and develop as well.

Sean Van Moorleghem: Yeah, there's no doubt that it's, uh, there's no doubt that this is a [00:21:00] disrupting a disruptive technology. Um, it's just, it is just in, its, uh, you know, it's, it's just in its capabilities. But, um, to Val's point. You gotta look at it as a positive. Um, it's, it's allowing people to do new work, whether it's on the agent side, uh, or Val mentioned that indie, the generative AI that we're, that we're doing, it's led to a lot of different, uh, work being prioritized, uh, and, and that sort of thing.

Sean Van Moorleghem: So we're, and we're seeing where people are getting involved with, with feeding. The information into these engines and ensuring that the quality is there and stuff like that. So I would say it definitely changes jobs. I think it, I personally think it enhances some jobs on the technology side. You know, it's, it's fun to be a part of these things and, um, you know, be involved with the newer tech and that sort of thing.

Sean Van Moorleghem: So, uh, yeah, it's, it's, uh, disruptive in a, in a positive way.

Valarie: You know, it's also having those, I mean, we've had, you know, conversations, you know, communication I think is key. And it's not that everyone, I mean, I have had a couple [00:22:00] people ask, oh, well what does this mean for me? If my job is doing new account open, what does that mean for me?

Valarie: And what, um, and so that becomes a like. say it's a personalized conversation. Well, with what does that person enjoy doing? Like what about their role do they love doing? Because there's parts of parts of this that we're gonna need more people to be in that human connection. There's, but there's also still a lot of, you know, we have, we have to manage digital associates now and track that.

Valarie: And so work, like I said, it's different. Um, but we still, I think when we have those individual personalized conversations with our associates to find out, you know, what really lights their fire, where do they like to be, we can get them in the right spot. And there's, good news is there's plenty of work right now to go around, so.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I heard two big things there that you both kind of said there. Embrace it and, uh, that it's positive. Right? And then I think you might've said fun. I heard somewhere in there. Uh, just there's a lot of [00:23:00] stuff going on with AI right now. I, I, in some ways, this is a continuation of a conversation I had.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Years ago with people about robots taking over from factory worker jobs, right? There's always gonna be the initial fear. A year ago, people were not sure if they were gonna have AI in the workplace or not, and people were using their phones and kind of like, you know, not embracing it. Super. And this is saying, you know, here we are now.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: It's, if I say the G word, my phone will turn on. Right. So, so, so it, it's, it's embedded in, in it's, there's no way to not be a part of this. And then the idea, you know, value, you talked about whether people going back and re-looking at roles that exist and that sort of thing. So retooling, being able to adjust to keep up with the technology.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that direction. How has this changed the way your teams prioritize their work or spend their time?

Valarie: You know, I mean, I think we've, because it's been a sliver, it hasn't rippled out to everyone. [00:24:00] Um, it is, but I think it certainly has allowed and freed up that space to train people up in different parts. You know, one thing I will say is because we did a small piece of the, the overarching flow is it creates a backlog on the front and back end of that.

Valarie: We didn't start at the beginning, we kind of started in the middle. and so we've

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Hmm.

Valarie: people, cross trained people up to help out with those parts, um, before and after. And so it's really helps. Develop people and grow their skill sets, um, which has been fun to see, whether that's specific to AI or just other parts of the process. And, um, and then I also see where it is, we have a number of people who are helping our associates and helping our financial professionals with AI in general. And so they're, you know, they're the. People that are on the front end that are excited about digging into it and, um, you know, helping lead the way when it comes to prompting and use cases and all those important things.[00:25:00]

Sean Van Moorleghem: Yeah, those are the folks, uh, Chris that are out there, you know, really prophesizing, you know, to get in and, and jump in and how to jump in, right? Getting that first initial step. You mentioned how we spend, uh, spend their time differently, uh, prioritizing their work and spending their time differently. Uh, maybe less in there. Email or, or, or being prompted on, on, you know, where to spend their time and to get the most value out of it. Um, you know, with, with all the stuff that's coming in, whether that's our inbox or our chats or in the news even, you know, news feeds and keeping up with the industry, um, figuring out how to funnel that to be more effective and, and invaluable

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: This is going by, this is a fast half hour. We've got about four minutes left, so, uh, we, and, and we could just keep talking for all day with this. You know, and Val, one of the things you mentioned was cross training. There's another thing as an organizational leader, we always talk about cross training, but are we really doing it right?

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: So, so this gives us an opportunity to go back and cross [00:26:00] train when we have key players that are, you know. Taking time off, then the person actually knows that position. 'cause they've had to go in and, and it's all through self-development and it's being pushed by ai. So it's positive change.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Alright, I've got just a few more minutes here. So Val, you know, one of the things you talked about in the article was this metaphor where you compared AI to fire both beautiful and dangerous. Really, it really stuck with readers. What lessons do you think financial firms need to take seriously now?

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Before scaling AI further.

Valarie: You know, I, I do think it is good governance and tracking, especially on this agent side of, you know, what agents have we built, you know, who is their human supervisor? Um. Tracking that, understanding that, you know, I was just actually having a conversation with our HR leaders today of how we're gonna start to manage that.

Valarie: Um, and. Think about them as actual associates and [00:27:00] make sure, you know, I kind of joke around that, you know, they don't, we don't lose track and they all gang up, um, against us something and we don't, don't realize it. But then as we also do change processes and things down the road, it's gonna be important to understand where we have built in a Gen AI and make sure that. Just as like you have to train a human associate when the process changes. We're gonna need to understand where we have digital associates so that we can retrain and re-skill them parts of when technology changes or processes change.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. Sean, I've got a question for you, uh,

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: be, be before I ask you that, I was just going to, uh, pivot off of, um. Something that Val just just said that the, the, uh, uh, human supervisor, we're still not off the hook. Right? Even if we're, we're, we are responsible for the work of whoever we are managing, so I, so I love that.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: But Sean, as we get close to the end of the show here, where [00:28:00] shouldn't AI go, at least not yet in the advisor client experience?

Sean Van Moorleghem: Yeah, I, I, um, that's a good question. And, and from the standpoint, like personally, right, when you like, my relationship with my advisor, um, sure. I, I, I, I would love it if, uh, you know, he or he in this case has a. Tools and, and, uh, uh, capabilities at his fingertips, uh, to do deeper insights, uh, that sort of thing. I still want my advisor to overlay all their professional experience on my, my situation. Um, uh, their, their opinion matters. Their experience matters. Um, that's the secret sauce, right? Is that Sure. And I think the ai, the, the technology can help enhance those conversations, but those conversations still gotta be.

Sean Van Moorleghem: Person to person, at least for me personally, I would hate to see that, uh, go away. And I think a lot of folks are in that situation where it's like, um, you know, you, you want the [00:29:00] conversation maybe to be enhanced by the tech, but not to replace that, that relationship. So that's, uh, that's where I, that's where I fall on that one.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: And we are right here at the end of the show, uh, both of you. Thank you so much for being on the show. Final question, is there anything that I forgot to ask you that you'd like to leave listeners with today?

Valarie: Say, if you're not using ai, just um, start small. Um, incorporate it into your day. Play around with it in a fun way. Um, you know, see how I can do something. Help you cook dinner, do something with it.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that.

Sean Van Moorleghem: uh, the water's fine. Come on in. Uh, even if it's the shallow end of the pool, try it. If it's in your personal life, if it's in, uh, you know, before your business and that sort of thing, um, start trying to figure little ways to, to, to maybe alleviate some pain points, uh, with your day to day.

Sean Van Moorleghem: And, uh, by the time you know it, you'll be, you'll be expert.[00:30:00]

Valarie: Thank.

Sean Van Moorleghem: yeah. to you Chris. Thanks for the opportunity.

Sean Van Moorleghem: All right. Bye-bye.

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