7 Must-Have New Client Intake Bots for Financial Advisors

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that helps businesses engage website visitors in real‑time conversations. Its AI‑powered chatbots can qualify leads, schedule meetings, and route qualified prospects to the appropriate sales or advisory team members. Drift’s strength lies in its deep integration with popular CRM systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Marketo, allowing seamless data flow and automated follow‑up. The platform also offers a visual bot builder that lets users create conversational flows without coding, and its AI assistant can generate answers to common questions based on a knowledge base you upload. Drift’s pricing is tiered, with the Essentials plan starting at $400/month for small teams, scaling up to Enterprise plans that can be customized to fit larger firms. For financial advisors, Drift’s ability to schedule appointments directly through the chat interface and to capture essential intake data makes it a powerful tool for initial client engagement. However, the platform is primarily designed for marketing and sales, so its compliance features are limited, and it does not provide the specialized knowledge‑graph capabilities that AgentiveAIQ offers. Overall, Drift is a solid choice for firms that prioritize lead generation and sales funnel integration, especially those already using Salesforce or HubSpot. Its visual flow builder and AI assistant make it easy to deploy, but users may need additional tools to handle complex regulatory compliance or advanced knowledge retrieval.

Intercom is a customer messaging platform that combines live chat, chatbots, and product tours to help businesses communicate with website visitors. Its bot builder allows users to set up automated conversations that can ask qualifying questions, collect contact information, and route leads to the appropriate team. Intercom’s knowledge base feature lets you build a self‑service portal where users can search for answers, reducing the need for live agent intervention. The platform also offers robust segmentation and targeted messaging capabilities, enabling personalized communication based on user behavior. For financial advisors, Intercom’s ability to create targeted campaigns and automate lead capture can streamline the intake process. However, Intercom’s pricing starts at $39/month for the Starter plan, but the more advanced features required for a full intake bot, such as advanced automation and custom scripts, are only available on higher tiers, which can become expensive for smaller firms. Intercom’s strengths include a user‑friendly interface, a wide range of integrations, and a strong focus on customer support. Its main limitations for finance professionals are the lack of specialized compliance tools and the higher cost of advanced automation.

Ada is an AI‑driven chatbot platform focused on automating customer service and support. Its platform allows you to build natural‑language bots that can handle common inquiries, provide instant answers, and route complex issues to live agents. Ada’s strength lies in its declarative bot builder, which lets non‑technical users define conversation flows through a visual interface. The platform also offers a robust analytics dashboard to monitor bot performance and user satisfaction. Financial advisors can use Ada to automate routine questions about account balances, investment options, or policy details. The platform’s ability to integrate with various back‑end systems via webhooks means you can pull data from your CRM or financial software to answer user queries in real time. However, Ada does not provide a knowledge‑graph or RAG system, so its ability to retrieve contextual information from documents is limited. Additionally, Ada’s pricing is not publicly listed; customers must contact sales for a quote. Overall, Ada is well‑suited for firms that need a straightforward, no‑code chatbot for handling common support queries and reducing agent workload.

ManyChat is a chatbot platform originally built for Facebook Messenger but now expanded to support SMS, email, and web chat. It offers a drag‑and‑drop visual builder that allows users to create conversational flows, broadcast messages, and automate marketing sequences. ManyChat’s strengths include its integration with popular marketing tools such as Mailchimp, Shopify, and Zapier, which facilitate lead capture and e‑commerce operations. For financial advisors, ManyChat can be used to qualify leads through pre‑chat questionnaires and to schedule follow‑up appointments via calendar integrations. However, ManyChat’s focus is more on marketing automation than on knowledge‑based support. It also lacks a sophisticated knowledge graph or RAG system, meaning the bot’s answers are often limited to pre‑defined responses. Pricing starts at $20/month for the Pro plan, with the Pro+ plan at $25/month and the Pro+ 2 plan at $35/month. ManyChat is a good fit for firms that want a cost‑effective solution for automated marketing and lead nurturing, but it may fall short for advisors who need advanced knowledge retrieval and compliance features.

Botsify is a chatbot platform that enables businesses to build AI chatbots, virtual assistants, and help desks across multiple channels including web, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. The platform offers a visual flow builder that is accessible to non‑technical users, and it supports integrations with CRM systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zoho. Botsify also provides a knowledge base feature that allows you to upload FAQs and documents so that the bot can retrieve answers. The company offers a multilingual support capability and a team chat feature for handling escalated queries. Financial advisors can use Botsify to automate initial client intake, provide instant answers about investment products, and route complex questions to live advisors. However, Botsify’s knowledge base is document‑based and does not include a knowledge graph, so contextual understanding is limited. The pricing starts at $50/month for the Starter plan and scales up to $200/month for the Enterprise plan. Botsify is suitable for firms that need a multi‑channel chatbot with basic knowledge retrieval, but it may not suffice for advisors who require advanced memory and compliance features.

Chatfuel is a no‑code chatbot builder primarily focused on Facebook Messenger but also supports web chat, Telegram, and other platforms. It offers a visual drag‑and‑drop interface to create conversational flows, and it integrates with tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, and e‑commerce platforms. Chatfuel includes a knowledge base module that allows users to upload FAQs and documents for the bot to reference. The platform also supports AI powered by the GPT-3 model, enabling more natural conversations. Financial advisors can use Chatfuel to create quick intake bots that ask basic questions and collect contact information. The platform’s use of GPT-3 can provide more human‑like responses compared to rule‑based bots, but it does not include a knowledge graph or RAG system, limiting the depth of information retrieval. Pricing starts at $15/month for the Pro plan and $25/month for the Pro+ plan, with a Business plan at $50/month for larger teams. Chatfuel is an affordable option for advisors who want a fast, no‑code solution for customer engagement, but it may lack the advanced features required for complex intake workflows or compliance.