Wealth.com Unveils Ester: A Disruptive AI-Powered Legal Assistant Redefining Estate Planning

Expert-led technology streamlines processes, enhances efficiency, and drives unprecedented value for financial professionals and their clients

Wealth.com, the industry’s leading estate planning platform, announced the official launch of Ester, a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) legal assistant that enables financial advisors to make high-quality estate planning more accessible, cost effective and scalable. Ester™ harnesses the power of AI and machine learning (ML) to automate tedious and laborious tasks traditionally handled by financial analysts and in-house paralegals, empowering financial advisors to efficiently deliver customized wills, trusts and other estate planning documents.

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“Ester is truly revolutionary and an absolute ‘must’ for all advisors.”

As many as 93 percent of clients anticipate receiving estate planning guidance from their advisors, but a mere 22 percent claim to have received such assistance. Bridging that gap, Ester™ enables advisors to meet and exceed their clients’ estate planning needs by providing them with a cutting-edge solution to create adaptable plans that evolve with changing circumstances. By implementing Ester™, advisors can build lasting multigenerational relationships, attracting tech-savvy younger clients while demonstrating their commitment to staying current with the latest fintech innovations for existing clients.

Wealth.com is reimagining estate planning through a unique blend of innovative technology and unparalleled human expertise. Ester™ serves as a testament to that commitment and enters the market as the industry’s first AI-trained estate planning tool, introducing two noteworthy features:

• With its ability to understand specific client goals and the intricacies of existing estate plans, Ester™ can help clients seamlessly navigate and update their plans over time. Distinguishing itself from off-the-shelf large language models (or LLMs), the Ester™ proprietary model is trained and infused with Wealth.com’s extensive estate planning knowledge, experience, and data.

• Ester™ is conditioned with both short-term and long-term memory, enabling it to incorporate a client’s previous actions into its responses. This proprietary design allows Ester™ to more effectively guide clients by addressing their questions and providing proactive guidance that ensures optimal and up-to-date plans.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning rank at, or near, the top of almost everyone’s trend list right now,” said Danny Lohrfink, co-founder and chief product officer at Wealth.com. “However, it’s important to distinguish between the AI that is the buzzword in the PPT deck versus the real AI that is actively trained and harnessed by experts to deliver scalable value to businesses and their clients. When properly supervised, these technologies can be incredibly powerful, but if left unsupervised or untrained they can be both misleading and dangerous. That’s why there’s an arms race for AI/ML talent, and thankfully we have the best in the business.”

Among the architects behind the development of Ester™ is Eduardo Fontes, senior vice president of data science at Wealth.com. Fontes, who holds a master’s degree in data science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), brings almost three decades of financial services ML experience prior to joining Wealth.com, he served as the managing director and head of data Intelligence at TIAA, leading the Center of Excellence for Data Science & ML. Preceding this role, Fontes made significant contributions as head of data science and ML at Vanguard. Throughout his career, he has also held leadership roles in data science and ML at major financial institutions such as Amex, Visa and American Family Insurance. Fontes’ wealth of relevant experience further bolsters Wealth.com’s already robust decision science practice.

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Fontes remarked: “The truth is, no financial plan is complete without an estate plan and Ester™ will empower financial advisors to onboard clients efficiently, and enable those clients to build the estate plan that suits their needs. Ester™ is always learning, bringing professional domain knowledge and smart recommendations to their fingertips. Advisors and their clients are embarking on a fresh journey as AI and complex financial decisions join forces, forming the ideal match for intelligent systems.”

Wealth.com has earned the trust of more than 1,000 top advisors in the United States, representing prominent firms like Keebeck Wealth Management, MarketCounsel, and Farther. The company was founded to break down barriers in estate planning, offering a dynamic ecosystem that grows alongside its members while removing the complexity and confusion associated with antiquated alternatives.

“Words cannot begin to express how excited I was for the beta release of Ester™. The capabilities of the Visualization Suite have given me days back by reading existing planning documents and summarizing them into a visualizer in just seconds,” said Donna D. Shin, vice president, portfolio solutions group and wealth planner at Keebeck Wealth Management. “Ester is truly revolutionary and an absolute ‘must’ for all advisors.”

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