Turning Advisor Data Into Actionable Intelligence with Erin Colledge

[00:00:24] Doug Heikkinen: Let's start by having you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you made your way to Orion.

[00:00:32] Erin Colledge: Absolutely. So I am based out of Jacksonville, Florida and was up in New York for about a decade. And when I was moving back to Jacksonville in 2009, asked a couple mentors what was interesting, what was going on, and multiple people were referring me to Reed Colley and this new company he had called Black Diamond that was founded in Jacksonville.

And so, subsequently joined the team, found a love for product technology, that creative intersection of wealth, tech, and humans, and have just been really passionate about the space ever since. And about four years ago, rejoined Reed for a new venture called Summit. And our mission was to humanize the wealth management experience.

And in doing so, it was about bringing experience together in the context of supporting people. And so a year ago we were acquired by Orion. And our mission since joining Orion, has been to unify the experience across the Orion ecosystem, but really when it comes to how we're approaching unification.

It's about the advisors technology stack. So I am about a year into my journey at Orion and really happy to be here. It's a great team and excited for what's ahead.

[00:01:43] Doug Heikkinen: That's great. We're going to focus on AI today and Orion's new solution Denali AI. So to set the stage, can you tell us what you're hearing related to advisory practices and the general comfort level related to leveraging AI in their day-to-day work?

I mean, it's everywhere.

[00:02:02] Erin Colledge: It's everywhere and it's a spectrum. You know, very much still talk to people who won't touch it or have touched it and haven't found the value yet, to firms who've embraced it fully. There's a spectrum, but I think that, you know, in 2024, it felt as though there was a lot of AI curiosity and I think this past year has really been about seeing operationalization in most practices. So, we're talking to very few firms who aren't using AI in some semblance, albeit I think a lot of these perhaps are in specific targeted cases. But we are seeing that it's being embraced, it's being operationalized and there are fewer people really in the camp of, this isn't happening anymore.

[00:02:44] Doug Heikkinen: Denali AI is described as enterprise intelligence platform that unifies data workflows and insights across the advisor ecosystem. So how does this connected Intelligence foundation help advisors streamline their day-to-day workflows and make better decisions faster?

[00:03:03] Erin Colledge: So really, you know, I mentioned that when we were acquired, our mission was around technology unification.

And in order to do that, we really had to bring data together in service of advisor insights. And what that really means is when we work with advisors to bring them onto our experience, we're connecting their most important systems. So typically that's the CRM, the portfolio management system, making sure first and foremost those work together and that financial planning, risk, compliance, other topics that bring together that full picture of how advisor teams are supporting their clients. That's really the foundation of what we knew we needed to do to bring together information in service of this connected experience. And ultimately what that means is avoiding the swivel chair behavior, where advisors, their teams, are moving from desktop to desktop to try and get that clear picture by leveraging information and disparate systems.

And so, really our foundational mission was setting the context of the data, making sure it's all connected in the context of the client, since that's what matters. And then ultimately that's the baseline for how we think about this intelligence fabric.

[00:04:19] Doug Heikkinen: One of the touted benefits of Denali AI is enabling advisors to ask questions in plain English and receive data backed insights.

Can you walk us through what this natural language capability looks like in real advisor scenarios and how it improves speed to advice?

[00:04:37] Erin Colledge: Absolutely. And really they're countless examples, but let's talk about a few. Many of these may be in the context of a single client. So a client calls, may be upset about something, and the advisor wants a quick understanding of everything that's happening to support that client, to make sure that their bases are covered, they're getting on the phone prepared, not going to be surprised when they're having that conversation. And that, I'd say, generally being able to answer those questions in the context of what's happening to a client or to a specific person, very solidly in the wheelhouse of what we're supporting. And I think perhaps, as or more importantly, also understanding across the firm, the book of business.

Say there's a market dynamic that influences Tesla. Being able to ask the question of Denali AI, can you share clients with exposure to Tesla, can you particularly focus on those with an excess concentration? So that's going to give me my targeted call list where I may have had to bring in information from risk and portfolio management.

And put that together through Excel lookups and now instead I can ask that question through my connected data and very quickly turn into action so that I can make sure I'm reaching out to those clients and having the conversation to make sure they feel okay.

[00:05:54] Doug Heikkinen: Personalization at scale is a key theme for Denali AI.

In what ways does Denali AI help advisors provide deeper, more tailored experiences for clients? And how can that translate into stronger client relationships and growth?

[00:06:08] Erin Colledge: Absolutely. I think one of those is communication. So the prior example of just being aware of the true client context and any feedback they've provided, any activities from meetings that's important to that conversation.

So I think communication and being able to be a more effective communicator to that client. We also incorporate some of the behavioral finance concepts. So knowing where a client may be coming from. They may feel more aggressively comfortable with the market. They may feel more conservative, being able to tailor communications to the audience that you're serving. And I those are perhaps more obvious. The other aspect of how we're thinking about personalization is really how we can tailor the experience. So, this unification platform, it really has a tremendous amount of configurability that Denali AI can actually support.

So it can build views, and those views can be personalized. They can bring in content that is targeted to the specific client as an audience. It can bring imagery and media that are particularly answering questions that the client may have. So I think some of the ability to actually tailor the experience extremely towards what that client cares about, that's also what we're looking to support here.

[00:07:23] Doug Heikkinen: I'm sure you're hearing questions from advisors about privacy, both from their clients and the firms. So what controls and guardrails built in this to ensure accuracy, privacy, and firm specific intelligence?

[00:07:37] Erin Colledge: The foundation of the system is a single tenant instance, so when we're working with clients, they have their own database.

There's a physical separation of their information. And we're also making sure that we're working with any AI models, any of the LMS we're working with, we're working privately. So the only information that goes back to the model is aggregate analytics information. So there's no training that happens from client data.

The baseline foundation is ensuring that the data is private to the firm. But perhaps more importantly, we knew with all the data that we're bringing together that we wanted to be able to answer the question very clearly, what data does AI have access to within the system?

So we have a data catalog, and what that is, is for every data source we bring in the system, we put the control into the administration of the firm. They opt in the data source down to the data point level. And what that allows firms to do is to know if I have revoked access to a specific data point, Denali AI can't even be aware that it exists.

So we wanted to make sure that we could very clearly answer that question. And I actually think it's a really important question as AI vendors are being evaluated, if you can't clearly get an answer to what data does this have access to? It just, it could be a flag.

[00:08:54] Doug Heikkinen: Why is it important for AI technology and wealth management to be explainable and auditable?

And does Denali AI achieve that?

[00:09:04] Erin Colledge: Great question, and I think it's important because you think about the complexity of the data that's coming together. As much as we're putting guardrails and templates around how we want Denali AI to consider that data, we also knew we needed to be able to explain how it came to a certain conclusion.

So we, we do have the concept of an explainability audit. And so when a question is answered at, what exposure do I have to Tesla? There's a step of intent classification, understanding what the user wants, and then a mechanism of going through the orchestration of getting to that answer.

And with every one of those steps, there's transparency into what is happening. And to the point of, if there's a query to access data in the data catalog that's made available, the user can see the exact data that's being used. So at the end, if a conclusion is reached that doesn't make sense there's an ability to go back and understand where the conclusion came from, and then ultimately also kind of capture that, memorialize it for the firm, if for whatever reason there needs to be a compliance trail. That was something we wanted to build in from the beginning. Frankly, both so that we could understand how it was coming to certain conclusions, but also because we knew that was going to be the first question that we were getting. So every step of the thought process along the way is in our explainability audit, and we'll continue to make sure that it captures anything that may answer a question that's needed.

[00:10:31] Doug Heikkinen: How is Denali AI shifting advisors time from administrative tasks to client-centric activities? As we know time is gold. And are you getting any early feedback from firms about the shift?

[00:10:47] Erin Colledge: It's such a relationship industry. We very rarely hear, "I would love to spend more time in the technology tools that you provide."

I don't think it's where people ultimately want to live. And, you know, I think there's a lot of talk in with the prevalence of AI around scale and cost reduction. But I think I look at it as, creating the jobs that people want to have.

And it does feel like one of the most important technology levers to actually reaching that possibility. So the idea that advisors can really redeploy their time to working with clients, doing the work that they care about versus being frustrated that their technology's not working for them.

I think it does feel like the first needle moving opportunity I've seen in my time in the industry, and I think that's what I'm most excited for, really helping create jobs that people love and reduce the toil and take out the frustration of what's not working for them.

I think in terms of feedback, we're still in the early innings of this. So while I don't know that people are realizing fully that time back, I do still see the possibility of it, and it's one that we're going to be just aggressively staying on top of to make sure that we're actually meeting that outcome.

Because I think until we hear that people are actually experiencing that time back in their lives, so we haven't hit the mark.

[00:12:07] Doug Heikkinen: It's kind of like you give time back and they just do something else. So what's the time back?

[00:12:13] Erin Colledge: Where did it go?

[00:12:14] Doug Heikkinen: Right. Denali AI sits at the center of Orion's AI first ecosystem.

So what differentiates an AI native platform like Denali from other AI tools currently available in wealth management?

[00:12:29] Erin Colledge: You know, I think the way we're thinking about it is, it is at the center of where data comes together in the unified experience where advisors and clients can work together. And it's also ultimately going to serve connected workflows between these systems.

So we see the possibility of essentially operating from this platform where AI is really enabling every step along the way from how data comes together, the experience gets personalized, and how workflows are ultimately executed. The differentiating factor is, there are a lot of great solutions, a lot of use case specific solutions.

I think the one that you hear all the time is note taking solutions and I think those are great and they are giving real time back to people and allowing them to be more present. But one of the things I'm hearing is there are so many use case specific solutions that it's kind of hard.

I almost want two to three B plus solutions rather than 12 A plus solutions. The vendor management and security process around managing many solutions can be cumbersome and challenging for CTOs and firms who are evaluating all this technology. So I think what we're hoping to do over time is be able to serve broader use cases, really the advisors, end-to-end workflow in the context of the client life cycle.

And that's what we think, how we think this is differentiated as an AI native platform instead of a solution, a specific solution.

[00:13:59] Doug Heikkinen: All right, last one for you. So as you and Orion prepare for broader availability in 2026, what features or capabilities should advisors be most excited about, especially those that directly help them achieve their business goals?

[00:14:15] Erin Colledge: So right now we've made a lot of progress on data together, delivering insights, putting that at people's fingertips. And where we're working actively now is to actually act upon that in other connected systems. So user-driven workflows that can connect the dots across CRM and planning and risk.

We're actively working on that now. And, I think one of the reasons we're sticking to that singular simple interface when it comes to Denali AI is because if we lean into that, we think we can meet advisors where they want to be, where you can type into the prompt or you could speak into it, or you could converse with it via your watch.

We see an opportunity for mobile to really become meaningful and for people to do work the way they want to have work done. And so, we hope for the future is that we can really help transform how technology is serving people, how it's working for them. And we're just really excited to stay at the front lines of where this is going.

[00:15:14] Doug Heikkinen: The future is really exciting. And Erin, thank you so much. This has been great. Very informative and it's super nice meeting you.

[00:15:24] Erin Colledge: It's been great to meet you today. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:15:27] Doug Heikkinen: To learn more about Orion and Denali AI, please visit Orion.com. We are on all social media platforms @Advisorpedia. Please give us a follow. For our producer Tory Miller and everyone at Advisorpedia, thank you so much for listening.