Mike Sullivan on AI, Organizational Change, and What's Next for Citywire
Why AI Is as Much an Organizational Challenge as a Technological One
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Article Summary
OneDigital's Mike Sullivan highlights OneDigital's AI strategy in a recent Citywire feature, sharing how the firm has been building toward an AI-powered future for several years — and what that means for the future of the advisory space.
As artificial intelligence reshapes industries across the board, financial services firms are under pressure to define what AI means for their business and their clients.
OneDigital has been answering that question for years — and Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer Mike Sullivan recently sat down with Citywire to share where that journey has led. In the feature, Sullivan makes a case that most firms are still thinking about AI the wrong way. The real work, he argues, isn't technical, but organizational. Getting people to embrace new ways of working, building internal trust, and rethinking how advisors create value for clients are the challenges that matter most.
The piece goes inside OneDigital's AI strategy in depth, including the firm's suite of 12 active AI "coworkers" — specialized assistants that provide research and recommendations across wealth advisory, employee benefits, and HR consulting — with roughly 85% adoption across OneDigital’s 6,000 employees. Sullivan discusses plans to expand that toolkit to as many as 40 to 50 specialized assistants, alongside the development of agentic capabilities for tasks like portfolio construction, client communication, and quarterly updates. A client-facing AI solution is also in early development.
Underlying all of it is Sullivan's perspective that the advisor value proposition is evolving — and that the firms best positioned for the future will be those focused on expanding what they can do for clients, not just doing the same things faster.
"It's not enough to adopt AI — the firms that will win are the ones building a culture where curiosity drives how they use these tools every day, constantly pushing the boundaries of what they can do for clients."
Read the full Citywire article here: How $155bn OneDigital is reframing the AI question
Learn more about OneDigital's AI capabilities and what they mean for your business at our AI Hub.