Will AI help women be heard?
Maybe. But in financial planning, the work to be done is human.
By now, you probably understand at least one consequence of AI. Maybe it’s impacting how you do your job, how you allocate your portfolio, or how you spend your time. Maybe you haven’t been forced to do anything yet, but the conversation around AI has made you question how you’ll need to evolve to avoid professional extinction in a world that won’t stop optimizing. Consequences like these are the less obvious ones: how we obtain knowledge; how we digest what we experience; how we perceive what our own human capital is worth. And this is just the start.
Information can change us. Today, we have access to data sets that weren’t available before. We get to peek into rooms we haven’t been in and solidify evidence we always suspected to be true. When this opportunity arises, we can create our own consequences, but we have to want them to happen.
In other words, we still have real, human work to do.
Earlier this year, Read AI released a report that draws upon data from 159,870 virtual and hybrid meetings recorded by their platform. These meetings took place across 30 industries over the course of 60 days. Among other conclusions, the data showed that when Read AI’s note taking tool captured a meeting, women contributed around 9% more.
The report acknowledges, “meetings are not neutral spaces.” Gender often factors into the power dynamics determining who gets heard and who has influence over institutional decisions being made. Men speak earlier. They speak more often. They assert their questions and opinions with less qualifying statements and blinder confidence. Researchers have well documented the resulting “Babble hypothesis,” where people believe that the talkers are the leaders—even if what they’re saying is absolute garbage.
I remember the classroom dynamics from my first year of law school well. A handful of young men dominated the discourse: raising their hands to answer rhetorical questions, peppering the professors with their own musings, always challenging classmates for the sake of hearing their own voices. We really did believe that they knew more, but the ruse ended once grades started coming out. In fact, I once received the highest grade in a class I never voluntarily spoke in. I point this out just to highlight how preclusive an environment like this can become, even for those of us with intelligent things to say. And of course, this was only the first time. Loud men exist in almost every room I’ve entered since.
These perceptions of power are fortified all around us. It’s a component of the problem we sought to solve in our book. Women are excluded from money conversations in a host of intentional, unintentional, and societally driven ways. For example, even when women join their male partners in the financial planning process, many remain disengaged from the details and disenfranchised from their right to act as an equal decisionmaker. My husband has seen it firsthand with client couples and prospective clients. I observed it clearly while interviewing couples for the book. When a man does most of the talking, he holds himself out as the person making choices on behalf of the couple, and people believe him.
But based on the findings of Read AI’s report, there seems to be a connection between the “ambient awareness” that your words are being captured and your willingness to cede the floor to others. A 9% shift feels statistically significant, and at the same time, isn’t so stark as to worry that AI notetaking tools are having a chilling effect on open communication. You could view the shift as facilitative, placing an invisible check on individuals who feel entitled to dominate meetings and opening the door for others to speak up.
How can this flatten the power dynamics in financial planning? It’s not simple, but it’s possible.
The complicating factor is that corporate meetings are not really the same as meetings with your financial advisor. They’re personal. There’s a baseline of comfort between everyone in the room. The presence of an AI notetaker may not pose the same existential check as one that functions as a corporate watchdog—nor should it. When a couple sits down with a financial advisor, there are no bosses and subordinates. Both partners should feel empowered to speak freely. I wouldn’t rush to celebrate hesitation or hypervigilance. You want people to feel comfortable.
But leaving it there sanitizes the reality of what some couples need. Equity is not something you can just acquiesce your way into. Fear of judgment by your financial advisor’s AI notetaking tool might be enough to temper your tone or spare your spouse a word, but the real opportunity for change isn’t coming as a downstream consequence of that.
With supportive AI, financial advisors now can understand the nuances around gender playing out in their practices. They can aggregate data from the couples they service and ask big questions, such as:
How many women are attending my meetings?
What is their average talk time?
Who is responding to my follow-up communications?
Am I making assumptions when I shouldn’t be?
And those meeting transcripts can offer a whole lot more than statistics on airtime. If an advisor knows a recent meeting felt tense or strained, they can review the notes to look for context they might have missed. Same goes for meetings covering topics where a spouse seemed overwhelmed or uncomfortable. These are all good reasons to follow up in writing, fill any information gaps, and tailor next steps with the confidence of knowing they’ve dug deeper and heard from everyone.
Lastly, studying tape can make financial advisors better. It can make almost any professional better. I know it’s a painful exercise to read transcripts of your own dialogue, but lawyers have been doing this since the dawn of time with deposition reports. Words and phrasing matter when you’re trying to get people to open up to you. Skipping this step is a missed opportunity to improve the way you communicate, especially with clients you are less experienced with engaging. Given the massive wealth transfer set to benefit women in the coming years, this will become less of a choice (and that’s a good thing). You can meet the moment by starting now.
Financial equity at home has a direct relationship to gender equity in the world. Even if the presence of a notetaking tool would not statistically alter the power dynamics inside of a financial planning meeting, the consequences of its presence could. That is up to the professionals who choose to make good use of the resources they have and those to come.
FWIW - no AI was used to write this piece, except for some title suggestions, because I’m bad at those :) Financial advisors, AI enthusiasts, couples: would love your thoughts. Can AI help equalize communications in your life? Let us know.
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The Sub Edit: ADT Home Security Systems
The Sub Edit is a recurring mini-series where we share the subscriptions we’ve added, changed, or deleted from our life stack and why.
While scrolling our town’s Facebook group, Heather came across SimpliSafe, a DIY home security system that’s been getting rave reviews from our neighbors. They were running a President’s Day promotion that looked pretty good: around $400 for equipment and roughly $35 per month for monitoring. But switching systems would require installing new hardware, and our break-even from the monthly savings would take almost two years.
So instead of replacing the system, I called our current provider, ADT.
When we bought our home almost 10 years ago, we simply went with the big name and didn’t think twice about it. But over time, I’ve noticed the monthly monitoring fee slowly creeping up. We started around $30 per month, and it eventually reached $54.
Their chatbot offered us a $10 monthly discount. When I pushed, I was told to call customer support. After a short conversation, the representative matched SimpliSafe’s $35 monthly price. The first contract they sent was for 48 months, which felt excessive. I asked for two years, and within minutes, a new 24-month agreement arrived.
Net result: about $240 saved per year without changing a thing in our home. What a good reminder to review your cost of services regularly, because prices will creep. –Douglas
We’re in PRINT!
We are so proud to share an article we contributed to in The Wall Street Journal this week, about how to get on the same digital page with your partner. When we discuss the importance of having access to accounts, passwords, and financial information, we’re not just thinking about fairness. It’s how you protect the people closest to you in the moments you don’t see coming.
Money Together is here! Order now in your format of choice.
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The content shared in The Joint Account does not constitute financial, legal, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their respective professionals for specific advice tailored to their situation. The information contained in this post is general in nature and for informational purposes only. It should not be considered as investment advice or as a recommendation of any particular strategy or investment product. This post is not a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any specific security. Bone Fide Wealth cannot guarantee the accuracy of information from third parties.