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Are Your Clients Doing All Right? Five Ways to Stay Present in the Age of AI
The Can't-Miss RIA Automation Deep Dive & Rethinking AUM
Jud Mackrill
August 23, 2025
Happy College Football Kickoff!
Later today, my favorite sport officially returns with Farmageddon: Iowa State vs. Kansas State in the Aer Lingus Classic in Dublin.
Earlier this week, I flew from Omaha to Atlanta on a plane packed with Iowa State and K-State fans, buzzing about sipping Guinness in the streets of Dublin and cheering their teams on.
For the record, I’ll probably lean toward Iowa State in this one—even though plenty of my friends went through Kansas State’s financial planning program.
Either way, the season is here.
And here’s this week’s Rising Tide.
Are Your Clients Doing All Right? Five Ways to Stay Present in the Age of AI
Next Mile: Rethinking AUM: A Better Way for RIAs to Measure Success 🎧
Automate Your RIA: Why Growing RIAs Need AI & Automation
Milemarker On the Road ✈️
Are Your Clients Doing All Right? Five Ways to Stay Present in the Age of AI
A couple weeks back, Archie Wilson, an incoming freshman punter from Australia, stood at the podium during a Nebraska football press conference.
A reporter asked: “How are you doing being so far away from your family?”
Wilson froze. His eyes welled up. And he broke down in tears.
That moment of raw humanity hit me. Maybe because I’m a Nebraska fan. Maybe because my son Gideon just moved into his freshman dorm in Lincoln. Either way—it stuck with me.
It was a reminder that behind every stat, every performance, every role—we’re just people trying to hold it together, missing our families, carrying doubts, wondering if anyone notices.
Your clients are no different.
We spend so much time building, scaling, automating. But in the middle of all that, the most important thing might just be the simplest question: Are you doing all right?
The Shift We’re Facing
We live in an age where AI notetakers record every call, summarize every detail, and sometimes even auto-populate the CRM. It’s very likely that many firms will soon see those tools replace the CRM entirely.
Salesforce knows it—that’s why they’re desperate to keep firms paying into their ecosystem.
But here’s the reality: technology won’t save your client relationships. Presence will.
AI can help with memory. It can surface insights. It can handle the mechanics. But it can’t replace humanity. Instead, the opportunity for us is to use these tools to amplify presence—to free you up time for you to show up.
Five Ways to Stay Present in the Age of AI
“Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘you’re not alone.’”
Use AI to remember—then go deeper.
Let the bots take notes, but don’t outsource the listening. Review the notes, find the human detail, and follow up personally.
Pick up the phone when there’s no agenda.
If your AI summary flags “life events” or “concerns,” don’t just log it—call about it. A two-minute check-in means more than a slick quarterly packet.
Turn automation into personalization.
Have AI remind you of birthdays, anniversaries, or kids’ names—but you send the handwritten note, the article, the thoughtful gift.
Listen for silence.
Not every insight will show up in an AI transcript. Pay attention to the pauses, the hesitations, the unspoken things. That’s where empathy lives.
Make consistency your edge.
AI will keep everyone “efficient.” But consistency in human presence—the rhythm of thoughtful, steady check-ins—is what builds unshakable trust.
The Takeaway
For Archie Wilson, vulnerability opened the door to a whole state—and even a nation—seeing and supporting him.
For your clients, presence does the same.
AI will keep getting better at tracking the facts. But the future of client experience isn’t about data capture—it’s about empathy delivery.
And the question is simple: are your clients doing all right?
______________________
On the Pod: Rethinking AUM: A Better Way for RIAs to Measure Success
Episode 106: On this week’s episode, Kyle Van Pelt sits down with Lacey Shrum, Founder of Smart Kx. An accomplished professional with a diverse background in law, compliance, and entrepreneurship. At Smart Kx., she applies her extensive experience to drive strategic initiatives and deliver innovative solutions within the legal and technology sectors.
Kyle and Lacey do a deep dive into the metric that truly matters for advisory firms—revenue. Lacey shares why AUM can be a vanity metric, how to calculate and use blended rates, and ways to streamline billing for greater efficiency and profitability. They discuss common challenges during firm growth and acquisitions, how average daily balance reconciliation can smooth out revenue volatility, and why automation reduces friction in advisor operations.
(00:00) - Intro
(04:32) - Why protecting revenue matters more than chasing AUM
(08:26) - How Smart Kx gathers the data to power its calculations
(09:55) - The risks of relying on spreadsheets for billing
(14:17) - Why due diligence on revenue metrics is critical in acquisitions
(17:22) - Using Average Daily Balance (ADB) reconciliation for fairer, more transparent billing
(22:13) - Lacey's take on the fee structure debate
(23:39) - What’s holding RIAs back from adopting automation
(27:46) - The key revenue metrics every advisor should track
(32:59) - How Smart Kx is leveraging technology and AI
(36:07) - Lacey’s predictions for the future of the industry
(40:07) - Lacey's Milemarker Minute
⚡️Bookmarks
Why Growing RIAs Need AI & Automation
Thank you to my colleagues Kailash Duraiswami and Jessica Perez from Milemarker, along with Ben Olsen from Beemo Automation, for hosting a fantastic discussion on how AI and automation are reshaping the future of RIAs.
They shared real-world strategies on unifying data, overcoming common roadblocks, and using automation to scale smarter while elevating client service.
If you missed it, you can catch the full conversation here:
Milemarker on the Road
Catch my team on the road at the following events or cities:
September 3-4 - New York, NY
September 7-10 - Los Angeles, CA
September 10-12 - San Diego, CA
October 4-8 - Utah
If you’re in any of those cities and would like to arrange a meeting time, please reply to this email, and we’ll schedule something on the calendar.
Jud Mackrill