Episode summary
The WealthStack Podcast: Are You Hiring AI or Just Buying Tools? with Subatomic’s Sam Sova
Summary
Sam Sova argues that most wealth-management AI today is still incremental: faster note-taking, cleaner CRM updates, and slightly better workflows. His case is that the industry is in a “1995 moment,” where the real shift is moving from reactive tools to proactive AI co-workers that reason across systems, understand clients, and take action alongside humans.
Subatomic positions itself as an AI orchestration platform rather than a software vendor. Sova says the firm starts with data unification, because firms typically run 12 to 15 tools and data is fragmented across systems and even across name variations for the same person. By building a “golden record” and a cognitive data layer, he says AI can support meeting prep, follow-up, compliance, prospecting, and other workflows with context and accountability.
He also frames the opportunity as more than efficiency. The goal is to use automation to break the “growth ceiling,” redeploy staff toward client-facing work, and improve profitability and valuation. On the vendor landscape, he separates productivity tools, platforms, integration players, and true AI infrastructure, arguing that the durable unlock is orchestration, not point solutions.
Key takeaways
- Sam Sova says most current wealth-management AI is only incremental, not transformational, because firms are still using it mainly for summaries and workflow cleanup.
- Sova argues the real shift is from point solutions to agentic AI co-workers that act proactively across systems and workflows.
- Sova says firms should prioritize security, auditability, and true orchestration; API integrations alone do not create a single customer view.
- Subatomic says its AI-first implementation model means 80% to 90% of client work can be done by internal AI co-workers, cutting time and cost.
- Sova believes the biggest economic unlock is growth, not just efficiency, because automation can move humans toward higher-value client work.
Notable quotes
“everyone in Wealth Management says they're using AI right now. But let's be honest, most of what we're seeing is actually still just faster note-taking”
“we're not selling software. We actually help firms hire AI co-workers”
“We think of this as how do we help our clients adapt, evolve, and scale in this critical moment in time”
“what we're doing is we're now pulling it through what's called the medallion architecture”
How the episode opens
Don't let busy work crowd out what matters most. Serve your clients better and grow AUM with help from Blay's US-based client services assistants who bring real financial industry experience and handle the day-to-day details. And they're offering a free resource 15 ways to deliver more value to your clients.
Text stack sac to 55123 to get your guide from Blay. Welcome to the Wealth Stack podcast. I'm your host, Shannon Rosik, the director of Wealth Stack Content Solutions.
And everyone in Wealth Management says they're using AI right now. But let's be honest, most of what we're seeing is actually still just faster note-taking, cleaner CRM updates, or just maybe slightly better workflows. Helpful?
Yes. Transformational? It's not really that close.
But meanwhile, there's a much bigger shift happening under the surface that almost no one is talking about yet. AI that doesn't just assist advisers. It actually works alongside them across systems, across workflows, taking action, not just waiting for prompts.
So to unpack all that today and what it actually means, what it looks like inside real RAAS today, I'm joined by Sam Silva, co-founder and CEO of Subatomic. Sam, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Shannon. Absolutely. I've been looking forward to this conversation with you and we're going to dive right in with the hardest question you will get this entire conversation because I want to know listeners want to know what makes Sam well Sam both personally and professionally.
I love that. Uh so to start husband father I got two two boys seven and nine years old that keep us very very busy. I also have three rhdes Rhodesian ridgebacks. Uh if you're familiar, they also have a lot of energy, so they keep us busy as well.
Just a little.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- hiring ai
- agentic ai
- ai orchestration
- wealth management workflows
- ria growth
Companies and tickers mentioned
- T
- JCI
- Subatomic
- Fiserv
- TIAA
- AT&T
- Johnson Controls
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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