How firms involve advisors in software decisions

Advisors want software to be as easy as ordering a ride or meal delivery, industry experts say. To close the gap between advisor expectations and technology limitations, firms need to listen to advisor needs, involve advisors in software decisions and set clear rules for using external AI tools.

“They’re not just looking at the tools that IG has versus a Big Six banking application,” Brent Allen, head of sales and distribution at IG said. “They’re benchmarking against the best of their experiences on their phone every day. That’s a very high bar to meet.”

Xin Liu, vice-president of strategy and enablement in retail advice and solutions with Sun Life, said implementing software that advisors want starts with understanding their workflows. For example, multi-advisor practices may have an associate do the same work an assistant does in a single-advisor practice.

“Break it down, tell me step by step who does what for how long and what that experience feel like. And we go through that click by click,” Liu added.

Four in 10 advisors (43%) rate practice management technology as a top improvement priority for their firms, and 45% say their firm’s tools don’t provide a full view of their clients’ financial situation, according to an IG Wealth Management survey released in February.

Many dealers, including Sun Life, have technology advisory committees where advisors give feedback on current problems and propose software solutions. Liu gets committee members to come up with a wish list of features to learn about advisors’ priorities and measurable pain points, such as time savings or business revenue opportunities, she said.

This exploratory phase includes letting advisors on the technology committee use demos to see if it fits their needs, Allen said. They could be shown software from three vendors, ask questions and provide the dealer feedback on what they think would work best.

“Once you get the buy-in that we’re solving the right problem, we know there’s value in spending time on this initiative,” Allen added. “The advisors that are in the technology group become peer advocates for us.”

Test, train, adopt, iterate

IG gives advisors a 12-month technology roadmap. It estimates which quarter new tools and updates will be implemented and helps advisors learn about changes in advance, Allen said.

When new software nears completion, technology committee members test the new prototype and provide feedback for final tweaks, Liu said. Then, Sun Life can roll out the pilot based on a specific region or user profile before going nationwide with internal training materials.

At IG, 25 managers of practice technology run workshops in their respective regions to teach advisors how to use new technology, Allen said. It’s useful for advisors to have a specific contact in case they need help.

While software can be implemented in as little as one to two quarters, it typically takes two years to ramp it up as advisors get used to it, Allen said. To get laggards on board, dealers sometimes turn alternatives off.

When IG started using Conquest Planning, it cut access to NaviPlan to get advisors to switch over, Allan said. But IG also helped advisors save all NaviPlan plans as PDFs so they wouldn’t lose any records.

Dealers continue to measure software outcomes two to three quarters following a launch to see if they need to make changes to boost adoption, Liu said. “[If] some users used [a tool] once and then stopped using it, we would run a targeted adoption survey to understand what’s working and what’s not working.”

Sun Life’s data shows that advisors who use three or fewer tools have average net wealth sales of under $200,000 a year, while those who use five or more tools have average net wealth sales of over $1 million.

Provide clarity on AI

While dealers work hard to provide advisors with new tools, some advisors may buy non-dealer AI software to fill specific gaps, said Christian Battistelli, a senior wealth and insurance advisor at Unified Advisory Group, CI Assante.

While using non-dealer tools presents risk, dealers can set clear guidelines to safeguard client data. Nine in ten (91%) advisors said AI could help improve their practice, but 31% had compliance concerns and 66% feared it may hurt relationships with clients, the IG survey found.

Dealers need to provide regular training and clear rules when it comes to using a non-dealer AI app, said Battistelli, who uses a mix of dealer-provided technology and AI-powered software from non-dealer vendors.

Battistelli prefers using AI embedded in existing dealer tools as they provide enterprise security, he said. But if he uses a non-dealer tool, he looks for industry-specific software vendors that understand compliance requirements.

Training could include informing advisors on responsibly using external AI tools, Battistelli added. For example, instead of feeding an entire client statement to the AI, advisors can screenshot a table of a client’s holdings to avoid inputting personal data.

“If you don’t need the information to do the job, don’t provide it to external AI,” Allen said. “Have good policies around data deletion … so you don’t have an entire client list exposed or entire practice exposed.”

The IG survey was conducted in August 2025 with 309 independent financial advisors who were members of the Environics Research Advisor Panel.