Quick Answer: Where does AI belong in estate planning?
AI can help organize information and reduce the administrative work around estate planning. Advisors still need to ask what matters, understand the reasons behind clients’ decisions, and help families have those conversations. Those intentions should remain in the client’s own words.
At Huntington Beach, the wealth management industry gathered with its feet in the sand and its attention on what comes next. Future Proof, a conference that draws 5,000 advisors and industry leaders, mixes live music and beachside conversations with questions about how the business of advice is changing.
AI was everywhere, promising faster onboarding, cleaner data and better proposals. Beneath those promises sits a bigger question: as technology takes on more of the work, what will families need most from their advisors?
The biggest transfer of wealth in history isn't going to be won on efficiency. It's going to be won on who the family trusts when the wealth moves. AI's real job in estate planning is to clear the administration out of the way so advisors and families can spend their time on the part no machine can do: intent.
The assets aren't what get lost
Cerulli estimates that $124 trillion in U.S. wealth will transfer to heirs and charities through 2048. That figure gets quoted so often it can feel abstract. Here’s what it looks like at the family level.
Imagine a daughter learning from the Will that she has been named executor. There’s no inventory and no explanation for the choices her mother made. An art collection is to be divided three ways, but all three children want the same painting, the one that hung over the dining-room table every Sunday for forty years. Nobody knows what their mother had in mind.
The legal documents weren’t the problem. What was missing was the context: why these choices were made and what these things meant to the family.
That's the gap Trusty was built for. And it's the reason I'm cautious about how our industry is talking about AI right now.
Where AI belongs
Estate planning is buried in administration. Finding the documents. Cataloguing what exists. Figuring out which version of the Will is current. Reading legal language nobody outside a law office enjoys. Chasing a client for the same information three times.
This is the work AI should absorb. Inside the Trusty app, AI helps families identify and catalogue valuables from a photo, and a conversational assistant helps advisors and their clients navigate the experience. It removes the friction that keeps many families from getting started.
Less time chasing documents leaves more room to ask why a decision matters. That gives advisors something useful to return to at the next meeting.
Where AI doesn't belong
Nobody wants their mother's reasons for leaving the ring to one daughter and the cottage to the other generated by a model. The value of a wish is that a person made it.
So the design principle is simple. Don’t automate the intent. Automate the inventory. Use technology to make it easy for a client to record why the canoe at the cottage matters to their family, and then get out of the way.
That's the balance we should be debating: not whether AI belongs in wealth management, but which part of the work it should take and which part it should protect.
What this means for advisors
Three things advisors should take back to their practices post-Future Proof.
The future advisor serves the entire family, not the account holder. When wealth transfers, so does the choice of advisor. If the first meaningful introduction happens after the wealth moves, there may be little reason for the next generation to stay. Advisors are better positioned to remain part of the family’s financial life when they’re already part of the conversation about what matters and why.
Ask about the people behind the plan. Knowing a client’s wishes, their family and the stories behind the assets gives you more to work with than account statements. When a client explains why a decision matters, ask whether the people affected have heard that explanation too.
Give the family something they can hold. Trusty’s Estate Binder is a personalized, professionally printed record of assets, plans, people and wishes, delivered through the advisor. It sits on a shelf. It gets opened at the kitchen table. It gives the family a place to return to the work you’ve done together.
Digital and deeply human
If AI saves you time preparing for a client meeting, use some of that time to ask a question you haven’t asked before. You may learn why a decision matters, or who in the family needs to hear about it. That’s where I want technology to take our industry.
If you were at Future Proof and missed us, we'd rather show you than tell you. Book a meeting with us and start a conversation.
People Also Ask
How is AI used in estate planning?
Mostly for administration: cataloguing assets, organizing documents, and helping people understand legal language. The judgment and intent behind an estate plan still come from the family and their advisors.
Does Trusty use AI to write wishes or messages?
No. Trusty uses AI to reduce the administrative work of organizing an estate. Wishes, context, and video messages come from the family in their own words.
What is the Trusty Estate Binder?
A personalized, professionally printed record of a family's assets, plans, people, and wishes, built from what the family captures in the Trusty app and delivered through their advisor.
Why does the Great Wealth Transfer matter to advisors?
Because inheritance can put an advisor relationship back into consideration. Advisors who already have a relationship with the next generation, and who know the family's intentions, are far better positioned to keep it.
Sources used in this post: Cerulli Associates' $84 trillion wealth transfer estimate, as cited by Wealth Professional, Sept 8, 2026. Family stories are drawn from existing Trusty blog content ("The Most Important Person in Your Estate Plan," "When Families Fall Apart Over Art, Rings and Boats").
