AI training for financial advisors in Chicago

FitRIAs · wealth teams · branches · 3–150 people

• SEC- and state-registered RIAsowners, advisors and the CCO
• Broker-dealer branches and hybrid advisorsworking under FINRA supervision
• Wealth management teamslead advisor, associate, paraplanner, client service
• Family officesreporting, research and correspondence
• Compliance teamswho approve tools and review output
• Firms on Copilot or an approved AI vendorwe train on whatever compliance approved

The tool question shapes this training more than in any other industry we teach. Many firms allow only an AI product that compliance has reviewed and that can retain prompts and responses, and some have approved nothing yet. We train on the tool your compliance team has approved; if there is none, the first session runs on fictional data and gives compliance a concrete list of the uses people want, which makes the approval decision easier.

The curriculum is the two-day program from our AI training for Chicago teams, with Day 2 rebuilt around advisory work. Past confidence results and the standard and fully custom options are on our AI training results page.

What does a compliant meeting-prep prompt look like?

It tells the model to prepare, not to recommend, and to cite its source for every number. Those two rules make the output easy for an advisor to check.

GOAL     Prep me for a 45-minute annual review.
SOURCE   Last year's meeting notes and planning summary below
         (fictional household).
TASK     Open action items, life changes mentioned, questions to ask.
RULES    No recommendations. Cite the source line for every figure.
         Mark anything older than 12 months as "confirm".
FORMAT   One page: agenda, open-items table, five questions.

After compliance signs off, the prompt is saved as shared instructions in the approved tool and tested on a few past reviews with names removed. Firms on Microsoft 365 can run the same prompt through Microsoft 365 Copilot, where it can draw on the advisor’s own mail and calendar.

• Account numbers, SSNs, dates of birththe identifiers that make customer information sensitive
• Custodial statements and full portfolio exportsuse anonymized data or the approved system
• Client meeting recordingsonly in a tool compliance approved for that purpose
• Custodian and portal credentialsnever, in any tool
• Material nonpublic informationnever
• Business communications on personal AI accountsa record the firm cannot supervise or retain

The SEC amended Regulation S-P in May 2024. Broker-dealers, investment companies, SEC-registered investment advisers and transfer agents must keep written incident response policies and procedures designed to detect, respond to and recover from unauthorized access to customer information, notify affected individuals as soon as practicable and no later than 30 days after becoming aware of an incident involving sensitive customer information, and oversee their service providers. Larger entities had to comply by December 3, 2025 and smaller entities (for advisers, under $1.5 billion in assets under management) by June 3, 2026. An AI vendor that receives customer information belongs in that service-provider oversight. State-registered advisers should check their own state’s requirements.

Put the rules in writing. Our AI acceptable use policy template is a starting point that compliance can fold into the manual, and our note on shadow IT explains why banning AI outright tends to push use onto personal phones.

FINRA Regulatory Notice 24-09

Published June 27, 2024, the notice reminds member firms that FINRA’s rules are technology neutral and apply when firms use generative AI, whether built in-house or embedded in a third-party product. It points to Rule 3110, which requires a reasonably designed supervisory system tailored to the firm’s business, and Rule 2210, whose content standards apply whether a person or a tool generated the communication. It says firms should evaluate gen AI tools before deploying them, and lists concerns about accuracy, privacy, bias, intellectual property and exploitation by threat actors. The notice states that it creates no new legal or regulatory requirements.

The SEC marketing rule and AI washing

Rule 206(4)-1 under the Investment Advisers Act governs adviser advertisements, including newsletters, websites and social posts that meet its definition. On March 18, 2024 the SEC settled charges against two advisers, Delphia (USA) and Global Predictions, for false and misleading statements about their use of AI, including Marketing Rule violations, with $400,000 in combined civil penalties. Two lessons follow for training: an AI-drafted newsletter goes through the same review as any other advertisement, and whatever the firm says about its own use of AI has to be true and documented.

Recordkeeping and off-channel communications

Advisers must keep certain written communications under Advisers Act Rule 204-2; broker-dealers keep theirs under Exchange Act Rule 17a-4 and FINRA Rule 4511. On August 14, 2024 the SEC announced settled charges against 26 broker-dealers and advisers, with $392.75 million in combined penalties, for failing to preserve communications sent through unapproved messaging methods and failing to supervise. AI raises the same question in a new place: if a client letter is drafted in a chatbot, decide with compliance whether the prompts and outputs are records and where they are kept.

Hiring and Illinois law

If the firm uses AI to screen candidates or evaluate staff, Illinois HB 3773 has applied since January 1, 2026; see the Illinois AI employment notice kit.

This section is general information from 312 IT Consulting, not legal or compliance advice. Your CCO and securities counsel decide how these rules apply to your firm.

1. First call with the CCO and a lead advisor: registration, approved tools, archiving, and which roles attend.
2. Compliance pre-read. We send the agenda, the fictional household data and every prompt we plan to use to compliance before the session.
3. Day 1, Foundations: how AI works, tokens and context, prompting, checking output and privacy, working from your own documents, and AI as a thinking partner for preparing a difficult client conversation.
4. Day 2, Applied: saved instructions, three labs on your processes (for example review prep, a post-meeting letter and a trust summary for the planning file), and multi-step and scheduled tasks such as a Friday list of next week’s reviews with open items.
5. Written procedures: AI sections for the compliance manual covering approved tools, prohibited data, review and retention, and vendor diligence under Reg S-P.
6. Certificates and a follow-up session a few weeks later.

Short on time? The 2–3 hour AI workshop covers meeting prep and correspondence in one session. Firms new to ChatGPT Business accounts may start with ChatGPT training. Our sister page on AI training for accounting firms covers tax and CPA practices.

Typical prices, not quotes. Every engagement gets a written scope and quote before work starts. Timelines are estimates and subject to change based on scope.

Illinois ETIP

Firms with a physical Illinois location and full-time Illinois employees may recover up to half of eligible training costs through ETIP, if the pre-approval request goes in before the session. The steps are in Funding AI training in Illinois, and typical budgets are in What AI training costs in Chicago.