Altruist launches AI financial planning agent via Hazel platform

Financial technology firms are integrating artificial intelligence to automate complex advisory workflows. Altruist has launched an AI-powered financial planning agent within its Hazel platform. The tool is designed to reduce the time required for tasks such as retirement planning, investment optimization, cash flow analysis, estate planning, tax strategy, and insurance risk assessment from hours to minutes.

Altruist stated that while Hazel uses AI to gather and interpret client information from documents and communications, it does not use generative AI to calculate financial figures; instead, dedicated programs perform all computations to ensure accuracy. The platform operates under zero-data-retention agreements, ensuring customer data is not used to train AI models.

In a related development, Vanilla CEO Gene Farrell announced the company’s shift toward ‘agentic estate planning.’ The initiative aims to address the low rate of estate planning among Americans by using AI to make the process more proactive and accessible, moving away from traditional manual methods that are often costly and time-consuming.