# We Let Our Financial Planners Write the Agents

Matt Ragone · AI Engineer NYC 2026 · October 13

[Watch recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10811s)

[03:00:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10812s) Hi everyone, I'm Matt Ragone and I'm a financial planner at Range.

[03:00:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10816s) I want to show you how our financial planners ended up writing the agents that we use every day.

[03:00:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10823s) And none of us, the financial planners for that matter, write code.

[03:00:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10827s) This is the build guide.

[03:00:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10829s) How we did it step by step so you can take it back to your own teams, companies, etc.

[03:00:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10835s) So a quick bit about me because it matters for how you'll hear this talk.

[03:00:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10839s) I'm not an engineer.

[03:00:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10841s) I'm a certified financial planner.

[03:00:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10842s) and I spend my days with clients talking about cash flow, taxes, insurance, retirement, estate, you name it.

[03:00:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10849s) I also lead the AI adoption for the planning team at Range, which is an all-in-one wealth management company.

[03:00:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10857s) Most agent talks you'll hear come from the people who built the platform.

[03:01:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10862s) This talk comes from someone on the other side, the people you hand the platform to.

[03:01:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10867s) We work in a regulated business. The output is financial advice to real clients. And the review step is not optional. So this isn't a vendor pitch. It's a method and it's what actually worked for us.

[03:01:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10883s) We started where everyone starts, AI as a chatbot.

[03:01:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10887s) I'd write a client message, paste it in, and ask it to make it a little clearer or friendlier.

[03:01:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10892s) And that was useful.

[03:01:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10893s) It saved me a few minutes here and there, but I was still doing all of the work manually.

[03:01:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10898s) I was just doing it a little bit faster.

[03:01:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10901s) The change that actually mattered came later.

[03:01:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10906s) Here's what we figured out.

[03:01:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10907s) A planner's constraint was never typing speed, for example.

[03:01:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10911s) It's that we can only be in one place at a time.

[03:01:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10915s) If I'm on a call with a client, I'm not building someone else's plan.

[03:02:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10920s) Writing faster doesn't fix that problem.

[03:02:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10922s) What fixes it is work that happens while I'm somewhere else.

[03:02:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10926s) So here's what a day looks like now.

[03:02:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10930s) I'm on a call with one client at the same time an agent is drafting a full cash flow analysis or an insurance analysis for a different client.

[03:02:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10940s) When the call ends, I open that draft, I fully review it, adjust what needs to be adjusted, and send the client their recommendations.

[03:02:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10949s) I want to be really clear about that last step.

[03:02:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10952s) The agent doesn't send anything.

[03:02:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10954s) A planner reviews every single recommendation before a client sees it.

[03:02:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10960s) What changed is that the first draft no longer needs me sitting in front of it.

[03:02:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10966s) Getting there took a lot more than a good prompt, however.

[03:02:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10970s) Two things had to be true.

[03:02:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10971s) First, the agent has to work where the work lives,

[03:02:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10976s) not in a separate chat window I'm copying and pasting it into.

[03:03:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10980s) Second, it has to know how we do it,

[03:03:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10983s) not how financial planning works in general.

[03:03:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10985s) The model already knows that,

[03:03:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10987s) but the agent needs to know how range does it,

[03:03:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10991s) what we look at first, what we always flag,

[03:03:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10994s) how we phrase a specific recommendation.

[03:03:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10996s) That combination is what a skill is.

[03:03:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=10999s) our firm's way of doing one specific piece of work written

[03:03:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11003s) down so an agent can follow it.

[03:03:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11007s) The bulk of this talk is how you build one. Five steps. Pick, teach, pack, test, and then ship. None of them require writing code.

[03:03:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11019s) Every one of them requires knowing the work really well,

[03:03:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11024s) which is exactly why the people doing the work should also be the ones building it.

[03:03:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11031s) Step one, pick a workflow you repeat.

[03:03:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11034s) Your initial instinct is to go for the flashiest work,

[03:03:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11038s) whatever's taking the most amount of time and the most complex.

[03:04:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11040s) Don't. Pick something you do every week where you already know what good looks like,

[03:04:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11046s) where you can spot a bad draft at a glance.

[03:04:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11049s) Additionally, we recommend choosing some of the least complex workflows to start, but some that require the most manual work.

[03:04:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11058s) For us, that meant things like cash flow analysis and insurance reviews.

[03:04:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11063s) Just for us here at Range, that required the most manual work.

[03:04:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11067s) And if you can't judge the output quickly, you can't test it and you can't trust it.

[03:04:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11072s) So look for two things. You do it often and you know how to judge it.

[03:04:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11079s) Step two, show it several real cases for previous plans you've delivered.

[03:04:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11084s) Take several actual client cases and walk through the work start to finish.

[03:04:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11090s) And as you do it, narrate your judgment out loud.

[03:04:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11093s) Not just, next I open the pay stub, why you're opening it.

[03:04:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11097s) What you're looking for.

[03:04:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11099s) What would make you stop and ask a question.

[03:05:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11102s) That narration is the whole game.

[03:05:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11105s) The steps are easy to write down.

[03:05:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11106s) the judgment is what makes it your firm's work instead of generic advice.

[03:05:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11114s) Step three, pack it into a skill. A skill isn't just a list of steps. Two things matter most.

[03:05:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11121s) The questions it must ask. Before it starts, what does it need to know? What should it confirm with

[03:05:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11128s) me instead of simply guessing? And the limits it must respect. What it never does on its own.

[03:05:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11134s) In our world, the big one is that it never sends anything to a client.

[03:05:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11139s) It drafts, and then a planner decides if it gets sent or needs to be adjusted.

[03:05:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11144s) If you only write the steps, you get something that simply just runs on its own.

[03:05:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11149s) If you write the questions and set the limits, you can get something you can trust.

[03:05:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11154s) Think of a skill as a recipe.

[03:05:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11156s) Once Claude knows how to do the skill, it will repeat your process on command.

[03:06:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11162s) Step number four, run it five or 10 times on real cases before anyone else sees it.

[03:06:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11170s) This is the step everyone wants to skip.

[03:06:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11173s) Every run teaches you something the skill didn't know yet, an edge case, a question it should have asked, a spot where it sounded confident and was wrong.

[03:06:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11181s) You need to fix it, save the skill, and run it again and again and again.

[03:06:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11187s) 5-10 runs sounds like a lot, but it's a lot less work than cleaning up after you hand a half-baked skill to 15, 20, 100 people in your team.

[03:06:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11198s) Step 5. Ship it with an owner and a reviewer.

[03:06:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11203s) The owner keeps it current. Our processes change, tax rules change, and a skill that was right in March can be wrong by December.

[03:06:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11212s) Remember, the reviewer checks it before the team relies on it, and it's someone other than the author.

[03:06:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11219s) Same as a plan. You don't grade your own work.

[03:07:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11222s) Once other people depend on a skill, somebody has to be accountable for it.

[03:07:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11227s) That's the difference between a clever personal shortcut and something a team can build on.

[03:07:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11233s) So where are we at currently?

[03:07:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11235s) Six months in, we have 24 skills across the company and 17 of them are in planning.

[03:07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11242s) And here's the part I didn't expect.

[03:07:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11244s) It spread to sales, product, marketing, all without a mandate.

[03:07:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11249s) Nobody sent a memo.

[03:07:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11250s) People saw what the planners were doing and started building their own agents.

[03:07:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11255s) Every one of those skills was written and is maintained by planners, marketers, and salespeople, not developers or engineers.

[03:07:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11264s) A couple of things changed once subject matter experts started building for their own niche.

[03:07:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11271s) The skills got a lot more specific.

[03:07:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11273s) The person who knows insurance, for example, best builds the insurance skill.

[03:07:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11278s) The person who best knows tax, tax code, tax law should be building the tax one.

[03:08:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11284s) And a review came naturally.

[03:08:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11286s) We already review each other's plans, and that's just how planning works.

[03:08:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11290s) So now we review each other's skills in that same way. It's the same habit, just a new thing to review.

[03:08:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11298s) So why does this matter right now? Because the bottleneck has moved. Whether a model can draft a cash flow analysis, that question's already been settled. It can.

[03:08:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11309s) What's not settled, who writes down how your firm does it? Who tests it before it ships? Who owns it once 15 other people depend on it?

[03:08:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11319s) If you're being asked to push agents out past the engineering org, you're about to hit these exact questions.

[03:08:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11326s) There isn't much field data on this yet, but this is how we've done it here at Range.

[03:08:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11334s) So that's it. Thank you so much for listening to this talk.

[03:08:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11337s) I'm Matt Ragone from Range, and you can reach me at mattatrange.com.

[03:09:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=11341s) Have a great day.