Executive Summary
AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are fundamentally changing how buyers research, compare, and choose financial services providers. The traditional marketing funnel is compressing, and brands that fail to adapt risk becoming invisible before prospects even know they exist. Three priorities should guide your next moves:
- Optimize for AI inclusion, not just search rankings. Structure your content so AI tools can identify, summarize, and credit your expertise. Publish substantive insights rather than keyword-driven filler.
- Make your brand easy to cite. AI condenses information ruthlessly. If your differentiators aren’t clear and distinct, they disappear. Create accurate, current content that machines and humans can reference confidently.
- Measure what matters now. Traditional metrics like page views and click-through rates don’t capture AI visibility. Track whether your brand appears in AI-generated recommendations and curated lists.
This article was originally published in Citybiz on January 15, 2026: AI Is Rewriting the Buyer’s Journey, and Most Marketing Funnels Aren’t Ready | citybiz
The way people buy has changed completely.
Your future clients aren’t using Google for short searches or browsing endless review sites. Instead, they’re talking to ChatGPT and Gemini, asking complex questions that used to take days of research to answer.
This fundamental behavioral shift is reshaping the funnel that marketers and business leaders in financial services have spent years optimizing.
What’s really happening? What does it mean for your strategy? And what can you do right now to stay visible, relevant, and chosen?
Let’s take a closer look at the modern buyer journey:
Stage 1: From Search to Conversation
Buyers used to start with simple Google searches: “Best CRM for RIAs.” “How to market to next-gen investors.”
Now they open ChatGPT and ask layered questions. “Which CRMs integrate best with Orion and support advisor-client collaboration?” “What marketing strategies help advisors grow with millennial investors?”
And even if they are asking Google these questions, AI summaries offer instant insights without ever sending users to your site.
Top-of-funnel traffic is shrinking, and traditional SEO is losing its grip on discovery.
Use it to your advantage: Optimize for AI inclusion, not just search rankings. Structure your content so AI can easily identify and credit your expertise. Publish deep insights rather than keyword filler. AI rewards clarity and authority over fluff, so approach your thought leadership content as training data for both humans and machines.
Stage 2: From Exploration to Curation
Buyers used to explore different options after discovering their problem. They visited review sites like Capterra and G2, scrolled through your pages, and compared features with your competitors.
Now they ask AI to compare options for them. “List the top five marketing agencies for financial services.” “What are the best advisor tech stacks for client engagement?”
AI delivers a shortlist. If you’re not on it, you never enter the buyer’s awareness.
Use it to your advantage: Make sure your brand exists in AI’s data ecosystem. Create accurate, current information that’s easy to summarize, and sharpen your differentiators. AI condenses information ruthlessly, meaning if your story isn’t distinct, it vanishes. Build brand authority so your name appears organically in AI-curated lists.
Stage 3: From Research to Prequalification
Prospects used to engage early. They downloaded guides, requested demos, and used your website as a learning tool.
Now they arrive fully informed. They’ve already asked AI to create customized requirement lists, budget ranges, and feature comparisons tailored to their firm size and tech stack.
You’re seeing fewer demo requests, not because interest is down, but because AI does the early education work. By the time prospects reach you, they’ve already decided what they need, and they know who can provide it.
Use it to your advantage: Shift your efforts down funnel from lead capture to lead conversion. Prepare for highly informed buyers by creating detailed comparisons, use cases, and technical insights that influence how AI defines your category. Train your sales team to go deeper, faster. Today, first calls are about validation, not discovery.
Stage 4: From Evaluation to Justification
Teams used to build business cases through spreadsheets, internal reviews, and long discussions.
Now they ask AI to build the case. “Compare the ROI of hiring a fractional CMO versus an internal marketing team for a $2B RIA.”
The buying cycle is fast and narrow. Once AI forms a preference, it shapes the buyer’s narrative before your proposal even arrives; winners close quickly, and others disappear.
Use it to your advantage: Differentiate early. Make your unique value simple enough for AI to articulate and humans to understand. Provide case studies, benchmarks, and ROI models that support internal justification. Build quantifiable proof points that strengthen your inclusion in AI-generated recommendations.
The New Funnel: Smaller at the Top, Smarter at the Bottom
The funnel isn’t dead, but AI has significantly compressed it.
Buyers still move from awareness to decision, but the journey is faster, filtered, and heavily automated. You’re no longer competing for clicks; you’re competing to be included in the conversations that shape perception and preference.
Your marketing must evolve from lead generation to credibility engineering. You need to become the obvious, trustworthy answer in a machine-mediated world.
Your Five-Step Roadmap
- Audit your digital footprint. How clearly do your differentiators appear when AI summarizes your brand?
- Reframe your content strategy. Build for interpretation over consumption. Create data-backed insights that machines and humans can cite confidently.
- Equip your sales team with smarter tools. Help them meet informed buyers with richer insights and personalized guidance.
- Measure visibility differently. Track inclusion in AI results, not just page rankings or clicks.
- Lead the conversation. Be the voice shaping what the next generation of advisors and fintech leaders learn from AI.
Think AI Algorithms Over Ad Spend
Your next wave of growth won’t come from outspending competitors; it’ll come from out-teaching the algorithms that guide your audience’s decisions.
AI changes what people believe about you before they ever visit your site. Shape that story early and you won’t just survive the shift; you’ll be the brand AI recommends.
About Kelly Waltrich
For 20 years, Intention.ly Co-Founder and CEO Kelly Waltrich has been championing the role of marketing in the financial services industry. As former Chief Marketing Officer at eMoney Advisor and Orion Advisor Solutions, she built powerhouse marketing teams from the ground up, developing the engines that would fuel the highest periods of growth for both firms.
Waltrich designed the strategy behind several successful rebrands, acquisitions, and product launches, including spearheading the development of two advisor marketing products, while creating unmatched overall brand visibility and helping to turn company executives into industry thought leaders. Through forward-thinking demand generation, PR, and product marketing, she created a consistent inbound pipeline for both firms, driving CAC down and SOV up. Her exceptional leadership and innovative approach earned her recognition as CMO of the Year by WealthManagement.com.
Today, Intention.ly represents the culmination of every lesson Waltrich has learned in her tenure as a marketing disruptor. Under her leadership, the growth engine design agency has experienced remarkable growth of its own, serving 100+ fintech and financial services firms while establishing itself at the forefront of AI-powered marketing innovation. Waltrich conceptualized and brought to market Intention.ly’s groundbreaking Advisor Brand Builder initiative, a generative AI solution that revolutionizes how financial firms approach brand development and marketing strategy.
Named one of 2025’s Top Women in Wealthtech and serving as an advisor to several high-growth tech firms, Waltrich continues to shape the industry’s marketing evolution. She’s also a frequently requested contributor to major trade publications and host of the “Don’t Do That” podcast, which has struck a resonant chord across the fintech, financial services, and tech leadership communities by delivering unique “what not to do” lessons from real-world leaders.
Intention.ly is born from Waltrich’s passion and persistent belief that when it’s done right, marketing is the accelerant firms need to transform their growth trajectory. Through cutting-edge AI innovation and proven strategic expertise, she continues to disrupt an industry ready for transformation.