How AI Is Changing Compliance in Wealth Management with Sid Yenamandra

• Beacon Strategies, LLC
• LinkedIn: BeaconStrategies
• LinkedIn: Chip Kispert
• chipkispert@beaconstrategiesllc.com

[00:00:00] RJ Malyk: Welcome to Beacon 1% Better Every Day with Chip Kispert, founder of Beacon Strategies. This podcast is all about challenging the norms of wealth management and empowering professionals to make continuous progress and always be curious. Chip knows firsthand how small, consistent improvements can lead to big breakthroughs, and that’s what we’re focused on here: helping you get 1% better every day.

[00:00:30] RJ Malyk: We’ll dive into conversations with industry professionals, share actionable strategies, and explore the mindset needed to overcome industry challenges and create lasting change. Let’s be curious, push beyond what’s always been done, and uncover better ways together

[00:00:51] RJ Malyk: Welcome to the Beacon 1% Better Everyday Podcast.

[00:00:53] RJ Malyk: I’m RJ Malyk, your producer, and today Chip Kispert sits down with Sid Yanamandra, [00:01:00] CEO and founder of SurgeONE.ai, the industry’s first AI native platform built to unify compliance, cybersecurity, and data infrastructure for broker-dealers, RIAs, and regulated financial institutions. Right now, here’s Chip.

[00:01:17] Chip Kispert: Sid, my friend, welcome.

[00:01:20] Sid Yenamandra: Hey, great to be here. Thank you, Chip.

[00:01:23] Chip Kispert: I love having you on the show. I always learn something new, and, uh, I’m excited to kind of get into our, the conversation today. Um, I’m sure we’ll meander into some terrific subjects and you’ll, uh, you’ll increase our listeners’ knowledge in the compliance space. Uh, so first off though, congratulations on winning the Mary Blackburn Challenge at our compliance roundtable.

[00:01:49] Sid Yenamandra: Oh, thank you, Chip. Excited about that.

[00:01:52] Chip Kispert: And you directed the donation to Silicon Valley Down Syndrome Network. Tell me a little bit about that.

[00:01:58] Sid Yenamandra: Yeah, you know, we [00:02:00] have someone very close to us in our family that, uh, that has Down syndrome, and they do excellent work. Um, I’ve actually been to many of their, uh, many of their events, and they’re, not only are they focused on education, uh, they just create a community for these, uh, kids and adults to really thrive, uh, you know, people that have Down syndrome.

[00:02:23] Sid Yenamandra: Uh, and you know, I, I’ll tell you, we’re blessed to have somebody like that in our family because they, they just make our life so much better on a daily basis. Uh, it kind of gives you an a se- an, a sense of what’s important and what’s-

[00:02:37] Chip Kispert: Absolutely …

[00:02:38] Sid Yenamandra: beyond everything that we’re all sort of used to on a daily basis and the daily grind.

[00:02:42] Sid Yenamandra: Kind of helps you kind of bring you back to, to your roots. Um, so I just thought, you know, they’d be a great organization to, to contribute to.

[00:02:50] Chip Kispert: That’s great. Um, happy to contribute there, and I’m, we’re gonna kind of transition the, the conversation here. Uh, but uh, I want to get [00:03:00] into some of the compliance technology that you’ve been working on.

[00:03:03] Chip Kispert: Uh, one of the things that, you know, uh, we’ve known each other for over a decade I think now. Mm-hmm. Um, but you were at Intradea before.

[00:03:13] Sid Yenamandra: Yep.

[00:03:13] Chip Kispert: And now you started SurgeONE, and I- you’ve been reimagining compliance technology for wealth management firms. Uh, so I’d love to kind of dive into that, and I want to start with kind of a wide open question.

[00:03:30] Chip Kispert: Why did you s- decide to open SurgeONE? You

[00:03:33] Sid Yenamandra: know, that’s an excellent question, Chip, and then, you know, it’s something you and I have talked about quite a bit, um, over the years. Uh, I think at the core, we saw a huge opportunity, uh, to help financial services firms, particularly RIAs and broker-dealers, kinda get out of the dark ages from a technology perspective and leverage all of the cutting-edge modern capabilities, particularly around AI, [00:04:00] to help drive better compliance outcomes, better operational efficiency, but ultimately better risk outcomes for organizations And I think, you know, five to 10 years ago when I started Intradea, actually 2012, you know, we, we actually started the company with the simplistic vision of focusing specifically just on one slice of compliance, which was cybersecurity, right?

[00:04:28] Sid Yenamandra: And, you know, cybersecurity has a compliance angle to it, but it also has a security angle to it. But in the RIA broker-dealer workflow, it’s the compliance angle that oftentimes drives the conversation. Although for some conversations that, you know, for some organizations, that conversation is different.

[00:04:44] Sid Yenamandra: So we saw a lot of firms getting fragmented technologies, right? So they were putting together a piecemeal solution set of, you know, compliance for cyber, compliance for marketing and ad review, branch audit, [00:05:00] policies and procedures, you know, code of ethics, you know, and, you know, all the submodules that go as part of code of ethics.

[00:05:08] Sid Yenamandra: And you really didn’t need all of these slices. At the end of the day, the RIA wants to focus on their core business. The broker-dealer wants to focus on their core business. You don’t wanna spend all your time in the back office. And so we saw a better future, and, um, I basically incubated SurgeONE.ai in 2022, October.

[00:05:32] Sid Yenamandra: Um, and we actually launched as a fund, if you recall, Chip. Mm-hmm. We saw an opportunity, uh, to not just, you know, not to build everything ourselves, but to really partner with the right companies that have key ingredient technology that we could ingest, uh, but just build the things that we did need to build and sort of put together a solution set, and that’s kinda what we’ve done with SurgeONE.ai.

[00:05:56] Chip Kispert: Let me just, you know, kinda ask that [00:06:00] question of, so what’s different from 2012 to 2026 as you’re looking at running a company?

[00:06:11] Sid Yenamandra: Excellent question. I mean, I, you know, I look at 2026, um, and by the way, we’re only halfway through, not even.

[00:06:21] Chip Kispert: Right.

[00:06:22] Sid Yenamandra: And I, I already feel like we reinvented, uh, the way we are doing business month over month since the beginning of 2026.

[00:06:33] RJ Malyk: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:34] Sid Yenamandra: Right? So yeah, I mean, fundamentally different in the way, um, you imagine, uh, how products are built. You imagine the market opportunity, how you operationalize the business, how you brainstorm. I mean, I’ll just recall, right? 2012, circa 2012, uh, my co-founder and I would sit around the table, and we would hypothesize and say, “Okay-” [00:07:00] We know that wealth firms need to figure out how they manage cybersecurity, but what, what within cybersecurity do you need to work on?

[00:07:08] Sid Yenamandra: And then we would spend weeks to collect data to try to f- you know, triangulate the answer, right? And then we’d sit together and we’d say, “Okay, what’s the solution?” And then one of us would come up with a solution, or we’d bring in our team and we’d come up with a solution set. Then we’d poke holes at it, and then that would take a month.

[00:07:27] Sid Yenamandra: And then a month later, we would take another three months to come up with- … what does an MVP have to look like? And then you have to go find the team to go build it. You’d have to go recruit them, or you get- find an outsource team. And then it would take them nine months to go build the MVP, the minimum viable product.

[00:07:46] Sid Yenamandra: And then you take… I mean, things took, from the time you conceived a concept and you really locked down on that concept to when you saw your first prototype [00:08:00] It took 18 months, maybe two years in some cases.

[00:08:03] Chip Kispert: Yep.

[00:08:03] Sid Yenamandra: And now you gotta go back and rethink your assumptions. Uh, were my assumptions 18 months ago accurate, and am I, am I playing the Wayne Gretzky move correctly?

[00:08:14] Sid Yenamandra: Am I skating to where the puck is, right? Um, well now, in 2026, I think we’re sort of in an instant gratification economy.

[00:08:25] Chip Kispert: Very much so.

[00:08:26] Sid Yenamandra: Right?

[00:08:27] Chip Kispert: Very much so.

[00:08:28] Sid Yenamandra: But it’s not just you, it’s your competition.

[00:08:30] Chip Kispert: Absolutely.

[00:08:31] Sid Yenamandra: Right? So the problem has shifted. It’s no longer, um, okay, who… You know, how fast do I think of the idea?

[00:08:39] Sid Yenamandra: How fast do I execute on the idea, and how do I test it? Well, uh, there’s a lot of smart people, and there’s a lot of smart, smart people vibe coding their way into new solutions, right?

[00:08:50] Chip Kispert: I know nothing about that.

[00:08:53] Sid Yenamandra: So the speed at which you’re moving today is lightning fast compared to [00:09:00] the way we were moving before.

[00:09:01] Sid Yenamandra: And so I think it’s great on one hand, but it’s also nerve-wracking ’cause you’ve gotta… I mean, everyone’s gotta be moving faster.

[00:09:11] Chip Kispert: Yep, absolutely. So I’m gonna shift a bit, right? And one of the things is, is you’re bringing this compliance tech to the marketplace, um, and the tools that you have. When a firm goes through a regulatory exam now, how do they go through it with your help?

[00:09:33] Sid Yenamandra: Yeah. Two things. One of the most important things that we’re seeing with regulatory exams now is they’re very much data-driven and risk-driven. A firm has a lot of different elements of risk, but it’s how you quantify the risk, it’s how you evaluate the risk for your organization, and how you put the policies and the procedures to curtail that risk is where the, uh, the, the [00:10:00] bulk of the work is.

[00:10:01] Chip Kispert: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:01] Sid Yenamandra: And so back in the day, right, or if you look at the legacy way of doing this, a lot of it was forms driven. A lot of it was driven by templates. You know, firms doing what they were doing ’cause that’s always how they did it, right? And then they would j- they would instantiate a s- compliance program or a risk program based on what they’ve always done, and then they would collect some data and try to sort of validate, you know, what they were, what they thought they should do with what they think they’re doing, and then try to address the gaps, right?

[00:10:40] Sid Yenamandra: Well, that’s not the way regulatory exams are now, um, being done. And, and we don’t, we don’t envision that as being the future. The future is, is you first start by collecting signals within your organization and automatically risk tiering it, right? And [00:11:00] then based on your risk tiers, you’re able to actually map your risk to your obligations.

[00:11:07] Sid Yenamandra: So simultaneously you need to know what your obligations are. What are your SEC obligations? What are the type of business that you have? So it’s all data-driven. And so the ability to be able to do all of those things, we’re able to collect the signals and identify your obligations, and put a plan that actually meets that continuously, is way different than the reactive model that existed before.

[00:11:30] Chip Kispert: Absolutely. And, you know, it’s fascinating ’cause as we go in on consulting engagements and do different work, we watch these firms that are, they’re not in that world yet.

[00:11:42] Sid Yenamandra: That’s right.

[00:11:43] Chip Kispert: And it’s v- you know, very difficult, very time-consuming. Um, you know, it’s almost like they’re g- they’re being guided by gut instinct.

[00:11:53] Sid Yenamandra: Correct.

[00:11:54] Chip Kispert: I just find that, you know, it’s interesting because the solutions are, that are coming out now, [00:12:00] um, and yours as like we focus on, are, are just moving the work of compliance forward so they can be more thorough.

[00:12:10] Sid Yenamandra: More thorough, more data-driven. Now, I’ll tell you this Um, that’s just one component of it, right?

[00:12:17] Sid Yenamandra: Having a, you know, unified data-driven solution set, uh, a holistic platform, if you will, versus piecemealed, cobbled together, reactive compliance, uh, leveraging advice from consultants because they’ve been doing something in a certain way for ages. That’s legacy. And then there’s, uh, you know, there’s a number of companies now focusing on, okay, now let’s just build a comprehensive, holistic platform where you can do everything in one place, make it data-driven.

[00:12:51] Sid Yenamandra: Well, that’s just one component of it. The second component of this is probably a little bit more important, which is once you’ve got a [00:13:00] system that tells you what you need to do, how do you know that what it’s telling you is actually accurate, right? So the experts in the loop, not just humans, but the ability to combine a great product, a holistic platform that’s data-driven.

[00:13:17] Chip Kispert: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:18] Sid Yenamandra: I don’t wanna use the word, I promised myself not to use the word AI, but I’m gonna use the word data-driven ’cause I just feel like at the root of it, y- you know, it- it’s a s- it’s an expert system that’s rooted in data.

[00:13:33] Chip Kispert: Yes.

[00:13:33] Sid Yenamandra: Okay. But if it’s not reviewed by a qualified human, the system breaks. And so one of the things that we’re doing is we’re walking on, on both, both feet, right?

[00:13:44] Sid Yenamandra: We’re, we’ve got the experts, and we’ve spent a lot of time acquiring talent in that area, and then we’ve got this holistic platform. We put those together, and that really at the end of the day drives better risk, better compliance outcomes.

[00:13:58] Chip Kispert: So if we look [00:14:00] at, if we look back, actually currently, right, we look at most wealth firms don’t really have good data.

[00:14:06] Sid Yenamandra: That’s right.

[00:14:07] Chip Kispert: So the reporting is gonna be biased or skewed based on that data.

[00:14:13] Sid Yenamandra: That’s right.

[00:14:14] Chip Kispert: How is a wealth firm supposed to fix that?

[00:14:18] Sid Yenamandra: Excellent question, and in fact, that’s a question I just came back from United Planners, uh, financial conference, uh, uh, in Phoenix. Uh, and I, you know, we had a, we had an opportunity to talk to reps, a lot of reps.

[00:14:30] Sid Yenamandra: Uh, and it was funny, you know, we were talking about model quality and LLMs and Gemini versus Claude and, um, ChatGPT and, you know, hallucination rates and the ability for models to be able to tell time. But the real root of the question is the question you just asked, which is even before we start getting into, you know, model quality and hallucination rates, you [00:15:00] gotta start with a good data set.

[00:15:01] Sid Yenamandra: Because if you don’t have a good data set, none of that matters, right? And, and, and, and too f- too often firms don’t actually understand that, but, but, but I think, uh, the question’s very pertinent. Well, so I think most organizations today have a data challenge, as we’ve talked about this for years.

[00:15:20] Chip Kispert: Yeah.

[00:15:20] Sid Yenamandra: Right? Absolutely. I think we’re in a better position now to be able to do something about it. So number one, every organization today should be inventorying all of their data. They should first know where did their data reside. Is it in their CRM? Is it in their portfolio management software? Is it in, you know, is it in, in Redtail for CRM- Mm-hmm

[00:15:41] Sid Yenamandra: Salesforce? Is it sitting in a Google shared drive? Hopefully not. Is it sitting, uh, in your other vendors that you use within your firm? How do you aggregate your data? How do you tabulate all your data sources? How do you bring it into a data lake house of sorts? How do you cleanse it? How do you [00:16:00] normalize it?

[00:16:00] Sid Yenamandra: How do you separate client data from organizational data? How do you label it? And all of that work, which is really, you know, down in the, you know, in the bowels of in- of data infrastructure, is really where the journey begins.

[00:16:17] Chip Kispert: I absolutely agree. But how does a firm go from where they are, right? To actually ha- having that data that can drive the business and protect the business.

[00:16:30] Chip Kispert: Because they’re, they’re in a, they’re in a spot where it’s not very good, and they got a lot of disparate, disparate s- sources, and bringing it all together i- i- is daunting for these firms.

[00:16:44] Sid Yenamandra: You know, look, I think number one, um, find an expert. Find a data expert. Look for a resource, right? I mean, certainly the w- we…

[00:16:55] Sid Yenamandra: This is one of our core tenants, uh, at SurgeONE, uh, [00:17:00] but there’s a number of great companies that do that, right? I mean, identify a data expert, whether that’s an internal resource, or via that internal resource you identify a third-party expert that can come in, uh, and do an assessment. Where are you in your data journey?

[00:17:15] Sid Yenamandra: And so a lot of these things that we just talked about, which is identifying, you know, the data sources, putting together a data strategy, um, putting together your digital transformation from the, from yesterday’s disparate solutions to, you know, a, an AI-enabled organization, right? That digital transformation path, you gotta work with the experts that have done that over and over again who can come in and see patterns, right?

[00:17:42] Chip Kispert: Yep.

[00:17:43] Sid Yenamandra: Uh, the good news is where we live today and where the ki- where the solutions have sort of evolved to, there are great answers for this, and it’s not gonna break the bank.

[00:17:53] Chip Kispert: Right.

[00:17:53] Sid Yenamandra: You know, most organizations can actually evolve, uh, and digitally transform [00:18:00] from, you know, the legacy way of doing things to a much more data-enabled organization.

[00:18:04] Sid Yenamandra: And so we’re seeing this across the board. So I’d say find an expert.

[00:18:08] Chip Kispert: Good advice. Uh, always reach out to a consultant, right?

[00:18:13] Sid Yenamandra: That’s right.

[00:18:14] Chip Kispert: That’s right. Gotta

[00:18:15] Sid Yenamandra: think about where I can find one, but yes.

[00:18:19] Chip Kispert: In your mind, is the SEC and FINRA kind of making AI governance a first-tier exam priority looking forward?

[00:18:27] Sid Yenamandra: The answer is yes. I mean, if you’ve been to any of the SEC, FINRA, or NSCP, or FSI discussions lately where a lot of compliance people get together or regulators are coming together, probably the number one conversation that everyone’s been having in late twenty twenty-five and twenty twenty-six is what does an AI governance framework, uh, look like?

[00:18:49] Sid Yenamandra: Um, who’s your AI czar within your organization? Who’s the chief AI officer that has been tagged with the responsibility of AI [00:19:00] governance, right? I mean, I don’t know if you saw this, but President Trump just unveiled the AI governance initiative for g- for, you know, for any new AI company that’s putting out a new model, it actually has to go through, uh, the US government, right?

[00:19:16] Sid Yenamandra: And this was something that, you know, they swore they wouldn’t do, and they’ve done an about face now, right? So it just tells you, uh, where the risks are, where the concerns are for a lot of the folks and a lot of the regulators, right? So it’s definitely coming down the stack. Um, but FINRA and the SEC have actually put out in their most recent, uh, circulars some of the questions that they intend to ask firms, right?

[00:19:39] Chip Kispert: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:40] Sid Yenamandra: How is a firm using AI? What models are they using? Inventorying every model and the use of it. How are they testing it? What kind of data is being fed into these models? How is that data being tested and cleansed? Um, who’s reviewing the outputs? How do you make sure that the [00:20:00] AI is not hallucinating and that somebody is actually looking at the AI and saying, “Yep, that result makes sense.

[00:20:07] Sid Yenamandra: This result doesn’t”? So a lot of this, uh, has actually been codified. Now, how organizations are collecting this evidence and how they’re doing it, that’s a whole different story.

[00:20:17] Chip Kispert: Gotcha. So our podcast is twenty minutes, so, uh, we gotta start kinda winding it down. Um, loved your comments and I, I asked that previous question ’cause I know you wrote an article about it in March and, uh, that gave me some good fodder for, uh, walking through that with you.

[00:20:35] Chip Kispert: But hey, I love you… You love, you love looking at the industry and you love studying this industry. Um, so who are two or three people, um, or firms doing the right work now that you really admire? Um, and why are they worth watching?

[00:20:58] Sid Yenamandra: Yeah. Um, [00:21:00] that’s an excellent question, and I gotta be careful. This is like one of those moments where you, you go up on the Oscars and you receive the award, and you often worry about, you know, who you’ve forgotten to thank.

[00:21:11] Sid Yenamandra: Not that I’ve had any experience doing that, but I’m just- … it just reminds me of that when you ask.

[00:21:16] RJ Malyk: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:17] Sid Yenamandra: But, you know, look, I… So the way I’ll answer that is- There are firms that I’m actually deeply engaged with, that I’m always impressed with, um, how they think about a variety of problems, right? So more than individuals, I’ll- let me cite the organizations.

[00:21:37] Sid Yenamandra: Uh, and then there’s other organizations that we aspire to work with and are, or are in early sort of, um, days of having conversations, let’s just say, but we just love the thinking, right? So two buckets. So in the first bucket-

[00:21:54] RJ Malyk: Mm-hmm …

[00:21:55] Sid Yenamandra: you know, organizations like Aaron at United Planners. I said I [00:22:00] wouldn’t name a name, but I will.

[00:22:01] Sid Yenamandra: And it’s fresh in my mind because I’m just coming back, uh, from their conference. And you know, I’ve always found Aaron to be extremely, um, uh, extremely smart, very well ahead of his time in terms of looking at where the industry, uh, is sort of going in this area. Um, and I got to tell you, with their, some of their Rep 2.0 initiatives, Rep 3.0 initiatives, they’ve been ahead of the curve in a lot of different areas.

[00:22:27] Sid Yenamandra: There’s a lot of work, but there’s, they’ve been very, they, you know, I think they’re looking at the industry the right way in terms of, uh, efficiency, consolidation of systems. So that’s one organization that, uh, that I’ve always been impressed with. Sanctuary Wealth is another one,

[00:22:43] Chip Kispert: right?

[00:22:43] Sid Yenamandra: Adam Alamut, one of the smartest guys that, uh, that I’ve seen in the industry.

[00:22:48] Sid Yenamandra: Uh, I think he’s put together a phenomenal team, and they’re growing like a weed. Um, and but some of the work that they’re doing on the back end, just in terms of the infrastructure, uh, we continue to see, uh, sort of [00:23:00] evolve. And then on the larger side, you know, firms like Ray J, firms like LPL, um, you know, are taking slow- a slightly different tact, right?

[00:23:09] Sid Yenamandra: So you’ve got the Ray J with a lot of the in-house capability and the investments, which is not necessarily outsourcing a lot of the build-out, but doing it all in-house and keeping the data in-house. Very impressive. I think they are, in many ways, representative of a class of companies.

[00:23:25] Chip Kispert: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:26] Sid Yenamandra: You know, LPL’s got an amazing, uh, challenge, right?

[00:23:30] Sid Yenamandra: Given the number of firms that they’ve got on their platform. Uh, and we’re seeing some of the work that they’ve been doing, um, so continue to be impressed with some of the work that they’ve been doing. So these are some of the firms, different sizes, different scale, but these are the guys that we look at.

[00:23:44] Chip Kispert: Well, thank you for that. Um, as we close the, the, the show, I always like to, uh, do our 1% better flash and give you 90 seconds off the cuff to share a [00:24:00] message, to go down a path that you wanna go down. So without further ado, I hand the mic to you.

[00:24:09] Sid Yenamandra: Thank you, Chip. Um- Wow. Yeah, so 1% better day by day, right? I think that’s a great motto.

[00:24:17] Sid Yenamandra: Um, let me… I’ll, I’ll, I’ll answer that in two ways. All right? And this would be my message. Uh As a person, as a leader, um, I challenge myself on a daily basis as to how do I drive the organization, execute to a vision point better every day than I did yesterday or the months prior. What can I do with all the technology, all the tools, um, all of the knowledge that we currently have to be able to leverage that, harness it quickly, to be able to put together my top three execution paths for the next, uh, you know, for the next week, the next day.

[00:24:57] Sid Yenamandra: So the to-dos are driven, [00:25:00] very data-driven and, and very… And we- there’s a lot of tools that allow people to do that. I think organizationally, you know, if I think about it from a client perspective, um, I think the organizations that are gonna be successful in this day and age are gonna be the ones that do the same thing, which is not be t- bogged down with the, uh, with the legacy, but look at the future of possibility and be able to sort of, you know, think about what’s available to them today, and be able to kind of just improve their organization 1% better, improve their team 1% better.

[00:25:34] Sid Yenamandra: Whether those are tools, whether those are people, the right mindset, it can all be done. I think we, we live in a different age now, and that the speed at which we can execute is way, way different, right, than it’s ever been.

[00:25:46] Chip Kispert: It’s incredibly fast right now and, uh, um, it- I, I can’t go into that as anymore, let’s put it that way, ’cause I’m just…

[00:25:55] Chip Kispert: It’s shocking how fast things are moving. Sid, how do people get in touch [00:26:00] with you, uh, when they’ve listened to the podcast and wanna get in touch with you or Surge?

[00:26:05] Sid Yenamandra: Anybody that wants to reach out to us, um, it’s easy. Sid@surgeone.ai. Um, uh, or drop me a note on LinkedIn, um, and we are… I promise you we’re very good at responses.

[00:26:18] Sid Yenamandra: Uh, we’ll, we will be on it. Uh, I’m sure Chick- Chip is chuckling, but- We’re trying to be 1% better at that every day.

[00:26:29] Chip Kispert: Fabulous. Sid, thank you for being on the p- on the podcast. Absolutely love having you ch- on the show. We- you shared some great things with us. Thank you.

[00:26:38] Sid Yenamandra: Thank you, Chip.

[00:26:39] Chip Kispert: Wow. RJ, what a great conversation with Sid.

[00:26:43] RJ Malyk: Lots of information and as, as we were talking before we started this, just the tip of the iceberg.

[00:26:51] Chip Kispert: That is a, uh, a, a day in my life talking about that. It’s, uh, but it’s amazing how much detail, [00:27:00] um, the wealth management business really demands. It’s quite profound.

[00:27:05] RJ Malyk: And what stood out to me is w- one t- when he was talking, he talked about the reactive model and how that’s done- because of what’s going on with AI.

[00:27:15] RJ Malyk: It’s n- you, you can’t sit back, and when he was describing the process of going through the system, you know, that would take, like, 18 months, I, I was just shaking my head going, “Wow.” I mean-

[00:27:28] Chip Kispert: Yeah. Look back and, you know, you look back even farther and it would take years.

[00:27:32] RJ Malyk: Right.

[00:27:33] Chip Kispert: Um, or, or everything was done manually.

[00:27:35] Chip Kispert: How about that?

[00:27:36] RJ Malyk: Yes. And the speed, the speed is mind-boggling. Uh, what, what did y- what are, what are your points?

[00:27:43] Chip Kispert: You know, I, I came away with three thoughts. Um, you know, and the first one is, you know, compliance is really becoming continuous and data-driven. It, it’s fascinating as we’re talking to firms [00:28:00] because, you know, they’re trying to get there versus kind of being reactive and having that gut feeling that I said on the show.

[00:28:08] Chip Kispert: Uh, number two, let’s go back to basics. It’s funny ’cause we talked about this on the Pershing panel I was at this week. Um, firms need clean and organized data before, you know, they can actually leverage a lot of those proactive tools, uh, and AI can be very useful without having halluc- uh, without hallucinating.

[00:28:32] RJ Malyk: Hmm.

[00:28:33] Chip Kispert: And then the three I kinda looked at, um, the best outcomes come from pairing technology with expert human oversight. The, the, the, the human has to be involved in this.

[00:28:46] RJ Malyk: Yeah, that, that stood out to me, too, uh, when he mentioned that. Uh, and I think I’m hearing that more and more, that with AI, it’s not a substitute.

[00:28:57] RJ Malyk: It’s just a really, really [00:29:00] excellent tool.

[00:29:01] Chip Kispert: It is. It, it also takes a lot of work. Everybody thinks it’s gonna do everything for you. It takes a lot of work.

[00:29:08] RJ Malyk: Yeah.

[00:29:08] Chip Kispert: A lot of work. And good data. So all right, time to wrap up. And before I leave, to quote Ted Lasso, “Be curious, not judgmental.” This is Chip Kispert wishing you well until the next episode of the Beacon “One Percent Better Every Day” podcast.

[00:29:24] RJ Malyk: All right, Chip. And we need to add in a shout-out as this podcast is brought to you by Beacon Strategies LLC, the go-to resource for roundtables, consulting, and services that support wealth management firms and their providers. If you need some industry perspective or help, please visit beaconstrategiesllc.com.

[00:29:43] RJ Malyk: Again, thank you for listening to the Beacon “One Percent Better” podcast. We ask you to share this podcast, rate it, and leave a review because this actually helps others find the podcast. Again, thank you for listening. And for Chip Kispert and everyone at Beacon Strategies, I’m RJ Malyk, and we look forward to you joining us [00:30:00] for our next podcast. Thanks for joining

[00:30:04] RJ Malyk: us on Beacon’s 1% Better Every Day podcast. Be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss an episode, and stay up to date with Chip and his friends’ latest insights and strategies. If you want to learn more about Beacon Strategies or get in touch, visit us at beaconstrategiesllc.com. Remember, progress starts with just 1% every day. Let’s keep challenging ourselves to be curious and grow.

[00:30:32] RJ Malyk: The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Beacon Strategies. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice