Raymond James unveiled a new client platform for its advisors and announced the launch of an artificial intelligence learning academy at its annual conference in Las Vegas on Monday.
Client 360, which was in beta with a limited number of advisors and is now live, consolidates client insights into the firm’s existing Client Center, the centralized place for client and account information already used by Raymond James advisors. During the conference opening, Chief Information Officer Andy Zolper said the system now surfaces more actionable information, including recent client activity, customer relationship management content, and client milestones.
“We have phenomenal advice and feedback on [Client 360] already delivering AI-powered content in one spot,” he told advisors. “No need to switch back and forth between different tools or tabs. Everything is summarized, organized and delivered in one spot.”
On the sidelines of the conference, Zolper said that Client 360 now also surfaces what the firm calls its Opportunities application, previously a separate tab, that brings up potential discussion areas with clients.
“For that household, there might be multiple account opportunities that have been surfaced, and you’re seeing those integrated with your CRM notes and recent transactions,” he said.
In recent earnings calls and interviews, Raymond James executives have highlighted the firm’s plans to spend $1.1 billion on technology over the next year. With Client 360, it adds to efforts by some wealth technology providers and even large registered investment advisors to give advisors a more consolidated view of client information and activity.
On the main stage at the conference, Private Client Group President Tash Elwyn reiterated Raymond James’ AI-focused technology spending, stressing that the efforts were aimed at empowering advisors, not replacing them.
“We’re going to continue to invest in these tools and technologies to not only create competitive advantage for you, but I think even more notably, to reaffirm you … as the center of the universe to your clients,” Elwyn said.
Raymond James announced other AI-driven applications, including an AI note assistant for the company’s CRM, Zoom AI meeting summaries integrated into the CRM, and generative AI search capabilities.
CIO Zolper said Raymond James worked with Amazon Web Services to create the platforms for the tools and, for the moment, Anthropic’s Claude for the AI language modeling. He noted that Raymond James is staying open to working with other AI language model providers.
Zolper said the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based firm would also be launching an AI Academy training program for financial advisors to put the new resources to use. He said the academy will offer virtual training and workshops on AI prompting, agent productivity and Microsoft 365 integrations, among other use cases.
“This will be launching the minute we get home from Elevate,” he said.
The CIO also spoke to the firm’s continued development of its proprietary AI agent announced earlier this year. The agent, initially called Rai, will now go by Raimond, according to the firm.
Zolper said there are 600 advisors piloting Raimond, along with 1,400 home office employees. Over the next six to 12 months, the firm is working to move Raimond from a tool for answering questions to one that can perform tasks.
“You might ask Raimond, ‘How do I open a trust account?’” Zolper said. “And then the next step would be, ‘Would you like me to do it for you?’ Technically, we could do that right now, but we really want to be cautious in rolling this out to make sure advisors are comfortable with it.”
While Raimond is currently advisor-facing, Zolper said it could become client-facing if its advisors see a use case for that in the future.
