For the past four years, Matt and I have been attending the annual Future Proof Conference that is entirely outdoors along the beach in Huntington Beach, CA.

This is a remarkable event hosted by Advisor Circle with Nyle Bayer as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). This conference brings together over 4000 top financial professionals, including analysts, investment advisors, financial planners, authors, and correspondents from major networks. It is three packed days of speakers covering topics on economics, domestic and world stock markets, political events, central banks, technology advances, and business best practices.

One unique aspect of this event is that months preceding the event, all attendees begin scheduling 15-minute one-on-one meetings with fellow attendees. Under two huge tents, over 10,000 such meet-ups are conducted during the conference. For me, this is a terrific opportunity to meet with CEOs and senior executives of large financial advisory and investment companies and senior portfolio fund managers to discuss best practices and growth strategies.

I also like to schedule meetings with people and companies I would normally not meet or have a chance to meet in industries that include private equity, cryptocurrency, hedge funds, alternative investments, bond managers, and international emerging markets.

Nyle has a few opportunities on the main stage, introducing keynote speakers or conducting a panel discussion as the MC. It is a very worthwhile three days under the beautiful skies of Southern California.

I wanted to share with you some of the key takeaways we learned over the past couple of days.

BEST PRACTICES

Michael Kitces, nationally recognized authority and consultant to financial advisors, kicked off the event by reviewing the results of a recent year-long study of financial advisory firms from small one-person shops to national multi-billion dollar companies. They discovered the following:

• Most firms operate at 90% efficiency. The introduction of AI to their company’s operations had minimal impact on the growth of the company. AI helped with back-office functions such as note-taking, electronic file organization, staff functions, and coordination. However, those firms that incorporated AI with direct client interaction received unfavorable client responses and a decline in client satisfaction. This would include new phone answering systems, AI-generated emails and correspondence, replacing in-person meetings with AI-generated reports and recommendations.

• About 70% of the firms have moderate utilization of their technology, such as Client Relationship Management (CRM) database, cloud-based electronic storage, compliance software, staff management, and scheduling programs. Their study indicated that most firms reached a level of moderate functionality of their technology.

• Most notable point by Mr. Kitces was that sustained and successful continued growth of financial planning and wealth management companies like Up Capital Management was dependent on increasing their staff and not relying on technology to scale. In other words, our industry is a customer service profession, and we cannot depend on AI or other new fashionable technology to replace our individual attention and interaction with clients.

We have stated in past UPdates our commitment to serving you, our clients, with personal care. We are committed to answering your calls, personally addressing your requests, and meeting in person. We recognize the huge responsibility of providing you with financial advice and managing your life savings. We will not channel your needs to an AI program or some other technology program.

I don’t know about you, but I am getting very impatient with the inability to reach a live person when I call larger companies. I first spent five minutes responding to AI-generated voice prompts asking what department or issue I was calling about. Then, when I finally do get a live person to answer, they ask me the same questions all over again. That is, of course, when I don’t get disconnected and need to call back to go through the whole process again. Another issue that “grinds my gears” is the validity of messages stating that, “due to unusual call volume….” as an excuse why they put me on extended hold and can’t answer my call. I could understand if there was some crisis or unique circumstance that would possibly crash their system, and nobody could answer my call. But we have been hearing these messages for years. When do ATT, banks, Apple, utility companies, retail stores, etc, ever plan to increase their staffing so they can simply answer the phone in a timely manner? Do they not know from extensive AI research what call volume will occur during every second of the day? Most insulting is the request at the end of the call to complete a survey of my satisfaction?!?

I digress. What I do want to share with you are many key points from the main stage speakers. The significant growth in stock values of specifically AI and tech companies was a key topic with most speakers. One session was between Bob Pasani, CNBC, and Dan Ives, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Wedbush Securities since 2018. Mr. Ives has been a tech analyst on Wall Street for over two decades, covering software and the broader technology landscape. He has been a strong advocate of technology and AI companies. He is also known for his very colorful attire and recently launched a clothing line for business dress with bright colored dress jackets, shirts, belts, and shoes.

He referred to the recent growth cycle of AI and tech stock values of companies like Nvidia, Palantir, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Tesla as being in the “bottom of the second inning” in reference to a baseball analogy. He forecasts significant development and adoption of AI by companies and governments worldwide, which is just in the early stages of implementation. He projected Nvidia achieving a $5 trillion market capitalization within the next year, or a 20% increase from today’s valuation. One extraordinary moment in real time yesterday was during their presentation, a press release announced that Mr. Ives was becoming the Chairman of Eightco Holdings (OCTO). The announcement stated OCTO would sell $250 million worth of stock in a private placement transaction to buy up Worldcoin tokens. Worldcoin is the token of the World network, which was co-founded by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (OPAI.PVT). The stock surged nearly 3,000% on Monday! Whatever Mr. Ives’ wealth was, it just increased significantly. Wow!

Later, Barry Ritholtz facilitated a conversation with Joe Davis. Mr. Ritholz is the founder and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, a financial planning and asset management firm with over $5 billion in assets under management. He first came to public notice for his warning about derivatives and mortgages, leading to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Joe Davis is Vanguard’s Chief Global Economist. Below is an outline of some of their key points:

• The US is well ahead of most other countries, and especially China, in our technology advancements in AI.

• The US is well ahead of most countries in its energy production

• China is ahead of the US in its general-purpose adoption of AI. Meaning, the use of AI is being implemented into deeper levels of operations by companies and governments than the US counterparts.

• The US population may decline in 2025 and 2026 for the first time in history due to the combination of strict border control and new immigration policies.

• Mr. Davis projects 100% certainty that the Federal Reserve will lower rates at their September 17-18 Federal Open Market Meeting (FOMC).

• US corporate productivity is strong and superior to most other countries.

• 90% of economists project US GDP growth of 2% in 2026

• AI will help with the transition of baby boomers retiring from the workforce.

• Low probability that forecasts of a recession in the next 3-5 years are correct

What Does This Mean to Me?

The upbeat attitude among economists and overall attendees was encouraging. Many expect the US to continue modest growth into 2026. There was uncertainty about how AI would be adopted by companies worldwide and the impact on the labor market. One speaker stated that AI will replace up to 50% of entry-level jobs. Dan Ives stated that AI will result in a net neutral or positive gain in employment, just as the internet in the 1990s created more jobs and opportunities. He referenced the significant creation of companies and employees as a result of technology developments (not to mention the increase of millionaires and billionaires) that can be traced back to the 1990s.

Lastly, I must say I am very proud of Nyle. He has led his team as the Chief Marketing Officer for Advisor Circle since the launch of Future Proof conferences, designing all the marketing collateral for all aspects of this and other conferences they host, including logos, branding materials, websites, registration, and banners all around the conference site. During the conference, he is intimately involved in the functionality of the conference as 1,000s of attendees are navigating around the nearly five-acre event. He is also networking with key sponsors of multi-billion-dollar investment companies. In addition, he is amazing on the stage, engaging with guests and the audience with his typical quick wit and charm.

He continues to assist me with Up Capital Management on growth initiatives and insights based on the interactions he has with many of the largest investment companies in the US.

The conference is great. But my greatest experience and primary reason I attend is to get a glimpse of Nyle in his zone during the event.

Let us know your thoughts or questions about this UPdate. We welcome your input.