How We’re Using AI at Our Firm

Lately, many people have asked how we’re using artificial intelligence (“AI”) behind the scenes.

We’ve embraced this new technology where it makes sense, and it has provided a noticeable boost to our operational efficiency. Tasks that used to take us hours can now be completed in a fraction of the time. This frees up our calendars to focus our attention on speaking with clients and analyzing the market.

Despite these efficiencies, we never allow AI to replace human judgment. The technology is still in its infancy, and we regularly catch errors in its output (sometimes big ones). Whenever AI is used, human review is also required.

Furthermore, we exclusively use enterprise-grade, paid subscriptions that strictly prohibit providers from using our data to train their models. All client data remains entirely within our firm’s secure control and is never exposed to outside vendors.

Here are our three favourite usages of AI.

Summarizing Client Discussions

We’re used to taking notes as we talk to clients. Notes prevent us from forgetting an important action item, such as sending cash for a vacation in 6 months, or planning to resign from a job in a year. These two examples require trades within the portfolio, and without notes, the client’s instructions might be forgotten. However, it’s difficult to maintain a conversation with someone while trying to write everything down at the same time.

Now, provided the client consents beforehand, we can use AI to take these kinds of notes for us. It even tells us the action items that were generated during the meeting. However, we’ve found that there can be errors in its notes, so it’s part of our policies and procedures to review the notes immediately afterwards to ensure they were written accurately.

Ensuring Forms are Written in “Plain Language”

Our industry involves a heavy layer of regulation, requiring us to share complex disclosures regarding topics like fairness policies, reporting frequencies, and risk metrics. Every quarter, we review these forms to see how they can be improved. Lately, we’ve been feeding dense compliance paragraphs into our AI tool, asking it to suggest “plain language” alternatives. This ensures our documentation remains legally compliant but becomes significantly easier for you to read and understand.

Deepening Research Capabilities

It is important to clarify that we do not let AI make any investment decisions. It doesn’t select stocks, but it does help us stay up to date on the existing companies our clients own. For example, when we analyze a potential investment, we might ask AI to help us identify additional risks we haven’t considered. Where a human analyst might identify five key risks, AI has the ability to scan vast amounts of data and come up with ten. We then take those points, verify them for accuracy, and use our professional experience to decide which ones truly impact your portfolio.

If you have any questions about our technology policies, or if you would like to discuss your portfolio, please don’t hesitate to reach out at info@schneiderpollock.com or 416-646-0756.

-written by Jeff Pollock