Why Your Money Still Needs a Human Being in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on a handful of conversations I have had with clients over the years. Each situation was very different on the surface, but together they all pointed back to the same underlying truth about this business and about the role that money plays in people’s lives.

One conversation began when a gentleman came into my office after missing the opportunity to sell a company he had built over several decades. At one point the industry around him had been strong and the business had real strategic value to potential buyers. Technology, however, was beginning to reshape the competitive landscape, and the change happened far more quickly than many people expected. When the opportunity to sell arrived, he simply could not bring himself to do it. The company was not just a company to him. It was his identity.

By the time he came into my office, that window had largely closed. The industry had shifted, the economics of the business had changed, and he was looking at a very different financial future than the one that had seemed possible only a year or two earlier. The conversation we had that day had very little to do with spreadsheets or valuations. What he needed most was help thinking through what came next and how someone begins to map out a new chapter of life when the path they once expected no longer exists. We eventually developed a plan together, but his life looked very different than it might have had that earlier opportunity worked out.

Another situation involved a woman who inherited a very large sum of money from a parent she had long been estranged from. On paper it looked like a life-changing financial event, but it was far more complicated than that. Alongside the inheritance came grief for a relationship that would never heal, anger about the past, and a sense of guilt and around the wealth she had suddenly received. The financial planning certainly mattered, but what she needed in that moment was someone who understood that money often arrives carrying emotional weight that spreadsheets cannot capture.

In another case, a highly compensated executive I work with saw his company go public and the stock price climb far beyond anyone’s expectations. We had spent years modeling different scenarios leading up to the IPO, but the outcome exceeded even the most optimistic projections. When the lockup period finally ended, he suddenly found himself with far more wealth than he had ever imagined. What followed were some fascinating conversations about what that level of financial freedom meant for their life, their family, and their future.

And then there are the situations where everything goes right. I have a client who began preparing for a business sale several years before the transaction ever occurred. We spent time thinking not only about valuation and taxes but also about identity, purpose, and what life might look like once the deal closed. When the business sold, it was on his terms. He remains involved in the company, his identity remains intact, and life is very good. The harder questions were asked long before the numbers arrived, and that made all the difference.

These situations share something important in common: Human beings are not binary.

Computer code is binary. It operates through zeros and ones, logic trees, and probabilities. Artificial intelligence is extraordinary at working within that framework, and it is already transforming how financial analysis, planning, and investment management are performed. Human lives, however, are far more complex than that.

Money intersects with identity, family relationships, regret, ambition, grief, and hope for the future. The numbers themselves matter, of course, but the meaning behind those numbers matters even more. That is why even in an age of extraordinary technology there are moments in our financial life that still require another human being sitting across the table.

My History with Technological and Personal Disruption

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about technology and disruption over the years, partly because I lived through one already.

From 1996 to 2006 I worked as a specialist trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with a firm called Bear Wagner Specialists, which at the time was majority owned by Bear Stearns. During those years I traded shares in dozens of listed stocks, rotating through different posts on the floor alongside hundreds of other traders who made up that unique ecosystem.

At the time, the New York Stock Exchange was widely viewed as one of the most stable financial institutions in the world. It had more than two centuries of history behind it, and many people assumed the system would continue operating the same way it always had. Yet from where I stood on the floor, it was becoming clear that something fundamental was beginning to change.

Many people think of trading as simply buying or selling a single security, but that is only a small part of what is happening across institutional markets. Most trading is part of a spread. Large investors are constantly buying one asset while selling another, often across multiple securities and multiple exchanges at the same time. The biggest players in the market needed those prices to move in sync.

Electronic markets were increasingly able to execute those trades in fractions of a second. On the New York Stock Exchange floor, we often took one or two seconds to complete a transaction. That difference may sound minor, but when trades are happening across multiple markets simultaneously, those delays create friction very quickly. As markets became more interconnected and trading technology improved, the gap between electronic execution and human-based floor execution simply became too large. The markets had evolved beyond the speed that human intermediaries could reasonably maintain.

There were moments when human judgment added value. During periods of extreme volatility, slowing things down could help restore order and prevent panic. But most of the time the machines were simply faster and more efficient. They processed orders more quickly, matched trades more cleanly, and eliminated delays that had once been accepted as part of the system.

Technology won that battle, and in many ways it probably should have.

I left the floor in February of 2006, and by 2008 the role I once held had largely disappeared. Electronic markets transformed that environment in ways that very few people inside the institution fully appreciated while it was happening.

The evolution of the markets did not surprise me. What surprised me was what I learned about myself after stepping away from that world. When I left New York, I bought a one-way ticket to South Africa and spent nearly a year traveling across four continents. I expected the adventure of a lifetime – which I did enjoy. But I also got a wake-up call. A part of me missed my old life.

The trading floor had a personality all its own. It felt something like a giant locker room filled with insane adolescents. It was chaotic and exhausting and sometimes ridiculous, but those people were my people. I missed the camaraderie, the energy, and the adrenaline far more than I ever expected. I had lost my identity, my community, and my sense of purpose. It took time and deliberate effort to find myself again.

When I moved into wealth management, I discovered very quickly that the real work of this profession had much less to do with spreadsheets than most people imagine. It had everything to do with understanding people. I found myself sitting across the table from business owners, families, widows, entrepreneurs, and individuals navigating major transitions in their lives. Some had inherited wealth and were trying to steward assets that represented a parent’s life work. Others had spent decades building companies they were preparing to step away from. In almost every case the financial decisions they were facing carried emotional weight that went far beyond the numbers.

All these realizations led me to think about money in a different way. To me, money is best understood as stored energy. It represents years of work, risk, sacrifice, persistence, and uncertainty. Behind every dollar is a story about what someone has done with their life. When that money moves, whether through the sale of a business, an inheritance, or market volatility, it often brings emotions with it that have nothing to do with a spreadsheet.

The State of AI Today in Wealth Management

Today we are living through another technological shift, this time driven by artificial intelligence. Across the wealth management industry, firms are increasingly adopting AI tools to help with research, client communication, planning analysis, and operational workflows. Many advisors are discovering that these tools can save hours each week by handling tasks that once required significant manual effort.

We have embraced these tools at The Wealth Stewards. Platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Zocks help us process information faster, organize ideas more clearly, and streamline some of the mechanical parts of our work.

Artificial intelligence is remarkably powerful when it comes to analyzing large datasets, identifying patterns, and modeling financial scenarios. Those capabilities are real and they will continue to improve. Yet there remains a point where the machine stops and the human being still matters.

When someone sells a business for eight figures and suddenly asks what life should look like next, the question is not purely financial. When someone inherits wealth from a parent or spouse and feels responsible for protecting that legacy, the challenge is not simply mathematical. When markets become volatile and portfolios move sharply up or down, what people experience is not just a shift in numbers, but a reaction tied to the years of effort that money represents. Understanding those moments requires empathy, judgment, and perspective. It requires someone who has lived through transitions of their own and can recognize the emotions that accompany them.

The most important financial decisions people make should not happen quickly. They deserve thoughtful conversation, reflection, and context. Sometimes the most valuable role an advisor can play is helping someone pause long enough to consider not only what they can do with their money, but what they should do. That reality highlights one of the biggest differences between my old world on the trading floor and the work I do today. In the markets, slowing things down was considered a flaw because efficiency demanded that trades move as quickly as possible. In wealth management, however, slowing down is often the most valuable thing we can do.

Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly reshape parts of this industry. It will automate routine tasks, improve analysis, and raise expectations around efficiency. But for those who see this profession as stewardship rather than transactions, the human side of the work will only become more important. Technology will continue evolving rapidly, while human nature changes far more slowly. People will still wrestle with identity, family responsibilities, legacy, and uncertainty, and they will continue to seek out someone they trust to help them think through the decisions that shape the course of their lives.

That is why, even in an age of extraordinary technology, your money still needs a human being.

A Note from the Rest of the Team

I have shared a great deal of my own perspective here, but this is not something I think about alone.

Over the years The Wealth Stewards has grown into a team of advisors working across Arizona and Massachusetts, collectively serving families in nearly thirty states. We talk about these tools regularly, and my colleagues have formed their own views about where artificial intelligence helps and where it stops.

The consensus is straightforward: AI earns its place behind the scenes. It helps us process information faster, organize data more cleanly, and handle the operational work that used to consume hours that could have been spent with clients. The meeting assistant we use, Zocks, was built specifically for financial advisors and captures conversation notes automatically so that we can stay present in the room rather than occupied with documentation. That kind of efficiency has real value.

What AI cannot do is understand a person. It can identify patterns in a portfolio and model scenarios across dozens of variables, but it has no way of knowing what a particular number means to a particular human being. It cannot sense when someone’s answer about risk tolerance is disconnected from how they will actually feel when markets move sharply. It cannot recognize when a financial decision is really a question about identity or family or legacy wearing a financial disguise.

Privacy is also something our team takes seriously. Many consumer AI tools were never designed with financial services in mind, and the standards that govern our industry exist for good reason. We are deliberate about which systems touch sensitive information and careful to keep personally identifiable data within secure environments, regardless of how capable a given tool might be.

The way we think about it is simple. Technology handles what technology does well. The human judgment, the empathy, the willingness to slow a conversation down when slowing down is exactly what someone needs — those remain ours to provide.

That will not change.

Written By Brent Mekosh