Ask an Advisor: The future of legacy CRMs in an AI world

For years, customer relationship management (CRM) systems have been the backbone of advisors’ tech stacks.

That primacy is now being questioned as a crop of new tools, many powered by artificial intelligence, enters the market and disrupts conventional approaches.

While none of these new tools can (yet) replace everything a CRM system does, together they may signal a shift in the role CRM tools play. 

Michael Kitces, head of planning strategy at St. Louis-based Focus Wealth Partners and an industry expert, recently told Financial Planning that he doesn’t think AI tools will eliminate the need for a CRM, because it fulfills core business functions. But he does think many AI note-takers could eventually evolve into CRMs of their own.

CRMs today serve as a repository of data, a tool to manage client relationships and a place to create tasks and workflows, Kitces said. AI note-takers, in particular, have already taken over the client relationship piece, he said.

“That, unto itself, does not do anything to displace CRM, because you still need to capture all the data somewhere,” he said. “AI note-takers usually aren’t the repository.”

Beyond that, AI does not yet produce output consistent enough to be trusted with workflows, Kitces said.

“The whole point of a workflow is that it happens exactly the same way every time it doesn’t deviate,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be creative with the workflow.”

To get a clearer understanding of the situation on the ground, we asked several financial advisors how these new tools measure up to CRMs, and if they foresee them replacing CRMs altogether in the future.

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