Happy Thursday,

AI isn’t slowing down—and neither should we. This newsletter is your shortcut to practical ideas and smarter strategies to grow, lead, and adapt as tech reshapes our industry.

To take it one step further, I’ve launched a new YouTube series. Each month, I’m sharing quick, tactical videos showing how advisors can use tools like ChatGPT to save time, think better, and scale more efficiently—starting with the work you're already doing.

Watch my latest episode here

The AI Edge

Helping advisors scale from 1 person to many people.

AI Application:

Surfn.ai

I’ve done one demo of NotebookLM in the past, but so much has been added that I decided to show different features and a different use case.

Overview:

Surfn is a conversational AI platform that transforms static content into interactive chat experiences. Think of it as turning your website, blog posts, or marketing materials into an intelligent assistant that can have actual conversations with prospects and clients. You feed it your content - website pages, blog articles, YouTube videos - and it creates a chatbot that can answer questions, guide visitors, and capture leads based on your specific expertise and materials.

How to apply Surfn to the business today:

• Prospect qualification landing page - Create an AI agent trained on your investment philosophy, service model, and typical client profiles. Use it as the landing page for LinkedIn ads or Google campaigns. Prospects can ask questions about your approach, and the agent qualifies them by capturing key information through natural conversation rather than static forms.

• Seminar pre-registration assistant - Build an agent specifically for your next client event or webinar. Train it on the topic you'll be covering (Roth conversions, estate planning, market outlook) so prospects can get preliminary questions answered while the agent captures registration details and specific areas of interest for your talk.

• Email signature interactive link - Replace your standard "schedule a call" link with a Surfn agent. When someone clicks, they can ask preliminary questions about working with you, learn about your process, and book time.

• Client service FAQ bot - Train an agent on your most common client questions: How do I access my portal? What's your rebalancing process? How do tax-loss harvesting decisions get made? Embed it in your client portal or email it to clients as a 24/7 resource that reduces your admin burden.

• Niche-specific lead magnets - Create separate agents for different specializations (physicians, tech executives, retirees). Train each one on relevant content for that audience, then use them as targeted landing pages. Someone interested in equity compensation gets a different experience than someone focused on retirement income planning.

Advanced:

• Multi-stage prospect nurture system - Build a series of connected agents that prospects move through. Initial contact agent handles basic qualification, passes warm leads to a "service model deep dive" agent, which then connects qualified prospects to your scheduling system. Each conversation builds context that gets passed along, creating a personalized journey.

• Integration with CRM workflow automation - Connect Surfn's lead capture directly to your CRM. When someone completes a conversation, automatically create the contact record, tag them based on their responses, trigger appropriate email sequences, and notify your team in Slack. The agent becomes the front end of your entire prospect pipeline.

• Content engagement analytics for marketing - Analyze which questions prospects ask your agent most frequently. Use these insights to guide your content creation - blog posts, videos, LinkedIn topics. You're essentially getting market research from every landing page interaction about what your audience actually wants to know.

• Referral partner introduction system - Create agents trained on your ideal client profile and service model, then share them with COIs (CPAs, attorneys, other advisors). When they have someone who might fit, they can direct them to your agent for initial screening. The conversation transcript becomes a warm handoff document that tells you exactly what the referral is looking for.

What could this application mean for the future of our business?

The way we interact with the web is shifting as AI and conversational interactions are becoming more common and comfortable. The speed at which people are expecting answers is accelerating and the longer people wait, the more likely they will go to the next option.

This shift changes competitive dynamics in interesting ways. The firm with the best website designer isn't necessarily winning anymore. The firm that can train the most helpful AI agent on their unique value proposition is. It's a weird democratization - sophisticated interactive experiences that used to require development teams are now accessible to solo advisors willing to invest a few hours.

For prospect conversion specifically, this addresses a real friction point. Most people aren't ready to schedule a call with an advisor on their first interaction with your brand. They have questions. They're comparing options. They're feeling things out. Traditional landing pages force an all-or-nothing decision: fill out this form or leave. Conversational AI creates a middle ground where prospects can engage substantively without commitment, and you can qualify them without spending time on unproductive discovery calls.

This is yet another example of the opportunities for us to not just work more efficiently based on how we have worked, but to rethink how we work completely.

See Surfn in action:

I went into this demo completely cold, just signed up for Surfn and started building an agent trained on my website content in real-time. Watch me create a functioning AI assistant in under 15 minutes, then test it by asking questions about my work and going through the consultation booking process. The smooth interaction honestly surprised me, especially considering it was only trained on 10 links from my site due to the free plan limitations.

To be honest, I was shocked at how easy it was and then how intelligent it was on such limited sites. And how the responses flowed to me was comfortable and didn’t feel like a “bot.” I’ve got a ton of ideas on how to use this in our business and I think you will find many as well.

-Matt