What Advisers Actually Say in Discovery Calls
We've had hundreds of conversations with advice firms. Here are the real, unfiltered things advisers tell us about their technology frustrations.
We don't share these quotes to embarrass anyone or to name specific products. We share them because they capture something that industry surveys and market reports miss: the human reality of working with inadequate technology every day. "I spend more time fighting my software than advising my clients." This comes up in nearly every call. Advisers didn't get into this profession to become data entry specialists, but that's what their tools have made them. "We know we need to change, but the thought of migration terrifies us." The lock-in effect is real and emotional, not just contractual. Years of data, customised workflows, team familiarity — it all creates inertia even when the current system is clearly failing. "I'm paying for twelve different tools and none of them talk to each other properly." The best-of-breed promise has left firms managing a patchwork of subscriptions, each solving one problem while creating three integration headaches. "My compliance officer spends all week reviewing reports that AI could check in seconds." Manual compliance review is one of the biggest time sinks in advice — and one of the most automatable. "Our clients keep asking why our portal looks like it's from 2005." Client expectations are set by their banking apps, their investment dashboards, their everyday digital experiences. Legacy advice technology can't compete. "I tried three AI tools last year. Returned all of them. They just created more admin, not less." The standalone AI tools promise efficiency but deliver a different flavour of busy work — uploading, downloading, copying, pasting. Every one of these frustrations has a common root: fragmented, outdated technology that wasn't built for how modern advice firms need to work. Hearing them repeated, call after call, is what drives us to build something fundamentally better.