Tempo: An Intelligence Layer for Wealth Advisors
An AI system that unifies the wealth advisor's fragmented, eight-tool day.
Overview
GreenBox builds software for independent RIAs, the advisors managing the $84 trillion now changing hands. Our studio took their portfolio-management challenge with one brief: find where AI removes the heaviest friction from an advisor's day without touching their judgment. The answer was Tempo, an intelligence layer that connects the whole day instead of adding one more screen.
Four of us shared the work end to end. I owned the front of the room: the workflow-and-solutions narrative, the Morning Brief walkthrough, the how-might-we framing, and the roadmap. It landed: GreenBox left us with a validated 3.5-year roadmap and a working prototype, not slides.
The Tool Pile
An advisor's stack is a pile of point solutions (CRM, portfolio reporting, planning, risk), each good at its slice, none owning the workflow. Context doesn't move between them, so what a client says Tuesday never reaches Wednesday's portfolio decision.
The advisor becomes the integration layer, carrying information by hand from one system to the next. That manual work is most of the 60%.
The bottleneck was never advice. It was keeping eight tools in sync. We reframed the RIA as an air traffic controller for money: dozens of portfolios, live markets, constant risk calls, across systems that don't talk. Every hour reconciling data is an hour not with clients. Tempo does the watching and checking so that time comes back.
The Job To Be Done
Underneath the tools, the job is one loop repeated for every client: Detect, Decide, Execute, Verify, Report. We mapped a day against it. Time piled up at three stages: that's where Tempo lives.
Current State
Tab after tab to see how the market hit each client. By the time a signal surfaces, the move already happened.
Desired State
Priority signals (drift, breaches, overnight shifts), ranked and waiting before the first call.
Current State
Trades span several platforms, compliance checked after the fact. No safe place to try a move first.
Desired State
Model and stress-test a rebalance against real holdings, compliance built in, before money moves.
Current State
Reconciliation sits apart from execution, so confirming trades matched the plan is slow and manual.
Desired State
Execution and confirmation in one record. No surprises on Monday.
OpportunityHow might we help an advisor spot market anomalies, understand each client's full financial picture, and check a rebalance, all without leaving the work of advising?
The reframe behind Tempo: keep the advisor advising; let the system carry the watching and checking.
Tempo: One Layer, Three Moves
SolutionMorning Brief
Overnight moves and today's priorities, ranked by urgency and impact.
Rebalance Sandbox
Model and stress-test strategies against real holdings, then commit.
AI Copilot
Always-on monitoring and next-best-action suggestions. The advisor signs off.
Each move in Tempo maps back to the loop: detect, decide, verify.
Morning Brief
The first five minutes. Market Pulse ties overnight moves to named portfolios: Sarah sees "the Hayes family is down $28k," not "the S&P moved 0.4%." Priorities rank who needs her first. The hour goes to advising, not aggregating.
Clients Page
One client, one screen. It pulls AUM, YTD returns, allocation drift against target, the holdings timeline, and the full interaction history out of the eight tools that used to keep them apart. A memory layer keeps the offline texture too: the dinner last quarter, the worried call before the election. The advisor walks in already knowing where things stand, then books the next meeting without leaving the page.
Rebalance Sandbox
Test a move before money moves. Model a rebalance against real holdings; watch return, volatility, and drawdown respond. Compliance is built in, so the check happens before the trade.
Prompt a Market Externality
Type a what-if (a rate hike, a selloff) and Tempo runs it across the whole book in seconds. Exposure shifts live, so the advisor sees who's at risk and walks the client through it with numbers. GreenBox called it a graphic equalizer for strategy.
AI Copilot
Always watching for drift and risk breaches, surfacing the next best action with reasoning the advisor can override. It proposes, the advisor decides. Every action signed off and logged.
A 3.5-year path to the operating system
Morning Brief dashboard + AI Copilot alpha for chat and contextual questions. Proves the data layer.
Deeper portfolio and market integrations feeding the Brief, priorities tuned to each advisor's book.
The full Rebalance Sandbox, with sentiment and world data feeding the stress tests.
AI Copilot beta that monitors portfolios on its own, advisor in the loop, across the dashboard.
My Role & Reflection
A strategy and concept engagement, validated by a working prototype and a strong client response, not a shipped product.
The four of us shaped the problem, research, and features together. My part was getting it across the line: presenting the narrative and the Morning Brief, and writing the how-might-we framing and roadmap that held the pitch together. I stood between a dense system and the people deciding whether to back it.