Advisor uses four AI tools to reclaim time, avoid ‘AI ick’

Anderson Lafontant, managing director at Blue Zone Wealth Advisors in Los Angeles, uses four AI tools — Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet, Quin, VRGL and Vanilla — to automate data tasks and free hours for client work. He runs a three-question check to avoid generic AI content he calls ‘AI ick.’

A few weeks ago Lafontant scanned a 120-page brokerage statement into an AI tool before a meeting with an entrepreneur who was selling a business. The tool returned an asset-allocation summary, fee analysis, performance attribution and historical stress tests. That preparation allowed the meeting to focus on family matters, cash-flow needs and concerns about the sale instead of spreadsheet reconciliation.

Claude Sonnet serves as a strategic thought partner to build frameworks for multistate tax questions and other large planning issues. Quin transcribes meetings, summarizes key points, updates the firm’s CRM, assigns tasks to operations and trading teams, drafts follow-up emails and tracks open items. Lafontant reports tasks that once took two hours of administrative catch-up now require 10 to 15 minutes of review.

VRGL handles portfolio intelligence by processing uploads overnight or in quick batches to produce allocation breakdowns, hidden-fee detection, performance attribution and simulated results from past market events. Vanilla reads multiple estate-planning PDFs and creates diagrams of trusts, beneficiaries and successor trustees; it helped prompt a successor-trustee conversation the week a client’s father entered the hospital.

Lafontant sets firm limits on how he uses AI. ‘AI is for preparation and analysis only,’ he wrote. He composes every client email, note and proposal himself, then runs AI tools to proofread for grammar, clarity or sensitive phrasing and reviews every output before it leaves his desk. Before sending client-facing content he applies a three-question screen: ‘Does this sound like me or like a robot? Have I reviewed every number and every recommendation myself? Would I be comfortable if the client knew exactly how this was created?’

He warns that long templated posts and formulaic outreach can erode trust, which he describes as the ‘AI ick.’ He keeps a small set of tools adapted to advisory workflows. Administrative and analytical work that once consumed full days now fits into short review blocks, freeing the team to spend more time on client conversations.

Blue Zone Wealth Advisors is a multifamily office based in Los Angeles. Lafontant is a certified financial planner and managing director. He recommends starting small with AI and keeping an advisor’s voice front and center when using these tools.