Episode Transcript
Kyle James (00:00.972)
Hey, welcome to the AI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Kyle James. Today we're going be diving in headfirst into how an online estate planning platform called Fastwheel is using AI inside of their own business. And we'll share the exact steps that you can take in order to implement AI for yourself. Now, before I talk more about that, listen closely. Are you looking to implement AI inside of your own company or just struggling to get your AI to stop hallucinating? Speak to GPT Trainer. GPT Trainer literally builds out and manages your AI agent for you, eliminating
hallucinations for good. Go to gpt-trainer.com. I promise you it'll be the biggest time saving decision that you've made all year. Trying to set up AI on your own is like trying to build a house from scratch. Sure, you could do it, but the time and frustration is gonna take you to get it finished just isn't worth it. It's a thousand times faster and safer to hire professionals. Schedule a consultation today. Once again, that's gpt-trainer.com. To have with me Zach.
Sakeris who is the CEO and founder of fastwheel.com. Super excited to have Zach on the show today based on Manhattan in New York. welcome Zach. How are you doing today?
Zach Tsakiris (01:10.414)
Hey Kyle, I'm doing good man, thanks for having me on the show.
Kyle James (01:13.186)
Yeah, super excited about this. tell me what, for those listening, what is Fastwill and like, how did it all, like tell us a little bit about it. Tell me how you founded the company and just give some background with that.
Zach Tsakiris (01:25.422)
Absolutely, yeah. real simple, FastWheel is an estate planning platform where people can come to our site and create will packages, trust packages, they can notarize their documents. We have a whole network of attorneys if you'd like a little bit of extra guidance. We also have a B2B component of our business. So we work with lot of financial advisors, insurance brokerage firms and group benefits companies to help them provide wills and trusts to their clients.
The origin of FastWheel, so I started out in the financial services space when people start out, especially at a young age, I I was like 23 when I started. Usually people bounce around to some different niches. So I tried nurses, I tried doctors, you know, when you're starting out and pitching the fact that you're 23 years old and you're trying to go manage 55 to 65 year olds money, you don't exactly have a...
You need to be a little bit more strategic with how you're approaching the client. So I bounced around to a few different niches and I eventually ended up in the estate planning niche. And I was working alongside an estate planning attorney that was working with higher net worth clients and mid-tier clients doing estate planning. And as I got more familiar with that industry, I noticed that there was a lot of mid-tier clients that were really overpaying for these basic wills and basic trusts.
And the reason for that is a lot of estate planning attorneys work on an hourly rate. So if these advisors are referring their same high net worth clients, they're referring their mid tier clients to those same attorneys. Oftentimes they're going to end up really overpaying for their documents. So fast will was really born to solve that problem and really just make.
estate planning affordable, easy and simple for the average person. mean, especially here in New York, you see sometimes people paying 1500, 3000, even up to 5000 for fairly basic documents. So we really went out to solve that problem. And then of course, it's the convenience factor. We, you can do our system all on the couch, on your bed, from home, you can even get it notarized from home. So you don't have to leave to go to a bank or any kind of notary.
Zach Tsakiris (03:37.39)
It's really just a quick solution where people can spend 15, 20 minutes getting it all done from home and just bringing that peace of mind. And as I mentioned, if they still would like to meet with an estate planning attorney, we have that feature as well.
Kyle James (03:51.486)
Yeah, yeah. So that's awesome. I feel like there's so many people, especially younger people too, like who are just, I don't even know where to begin. And even the older, like older generation too, it's like they have to do this at some point, but then, I mean, you're talking a couple of thousands of dollars and it's like, man, like it's, that's kind of, it's quite a bit if you're like, especially if you're on a limited income too, like you're just like, do I just make sense for me to do this? So right now at Fastwheel, like you mentioned, Luis, before our podcast, you're using some AI.
Tell me, what exactly are you using AI to help with your clients with and what challenges specifically are you trying to solve using AI?
Zach Tsakiris (04:31.222)
Yeah, so we use AI in a variety of ways, both internally, like on the QA side with our developers. We also have 24 seven live support with real humans giving support, but we also use an AI extension to help the user dig into any legal terminology or stuff like that. I would say the main area that we're using AI is in our document creation and we have closed source AI on that end. So sometimes people ask us, you know, why can't chat to BT just make a will?
or something like that. And really the short answer to that is chat GBT is open source AI. So as accurate as it might be, it's still pulling from all available sources. And as you can imagine, you know, wills and trust, they're not exactly the thing you want to get right 99 % of the time. You want it to hopefully be a hundred percent. And the disadvantage with using open source AI is that it potentially could be pulling in information that's not entirely accurate, especially when you have
Kyle James (05:17.473)
Hmm.
Zach Tsakiris (05:29.07)
lots of state specific compliance laws as it pertains to these different things. So for example, we had to build out our core product here in New York. And then as we were building out our attorney network, we had to make sure we were 20, 25 compliant in all 50 states. And these laws change a lot of the time. So the way that we're using AI is we have closed source AI that is all created by attorneys. So all of our documents are created by attorneys and customized by the user.
We're using AI to generate those documents, it is closed source AI created by attorneys and not using any open source, which of course just gives that slight risk of getting inaccurate information, which can really hurt you, especially in the probate process and stuff like that.
Kyle James (06:13.89)
Yeah, so that's my next question I was going ask. So if someone does go out there and they're like, you know what, I'm just going to use ChaggVT and hope for the best. And if they if it's not correct and someone passes away and then now here comes the passing of all the assets to the family members and say that trust, that will is not properly set up. What are some of the setbacks someone might experience if they didn't have it the right way set up?
Zach Tsakiris (06:41.678)
Yeah, great question. And there's setbacks on both sides. There are setbacks not having the will, there are setbacks not having the trust. To answer your question about, you know, what would happen if someone just chose to create it in chat GPT. So there's a variety of things. One is they absolutely could be disputed in court. And if you're not clear on exactly what you want to happen, as you and I know, mean, sometimes, you know, holidays and stuff, family can disagree, family can fight.
Kyle James (07:11.424)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Tsakiris (07:11.954)
And it's not always about money either. Sometimes it's about personal things, personal possessions, guardianship of children and stuff like that. if you don't really have an attorney designed will that can be notarized and made official in your state, you're leaving that document up to interpretation. So there's lots of different ways that attorneys can attack it from both angles. And then the larger...
picture would be not having a trust because a lot of people don't know that not having a trust means you're required to go through the probate process, which is a nasty process where the government is trying to effectively make your will for you. And a will goes alongside with the probate process. So if you have a will, you can go, you're still going to go to probate, but that's a set of instructions for the court. So it makes it a lot easier.
But a will itself does not avoid probate. not having a trust, know, sometimes I always say that, you know, sometimes people think like you have to be ultra wealthy to have a trust, which is just completely not the case. Anyone who owns a home, anyone who's saving retirement, even anyone who has kids, you don't want this stuff to go to the court. You don't want this stuff to go to the government.
I always joke too, if you've ever been to the DMV and you're like, hey, this is a 10 out of 10 experience, this was great, go to probate court. Just because as we know, oftentimes governments are sometimes ineffective in the way that they process these things. And this is much more important than getting your driver's license, right? This is something that's impacting your entire family. And oftentimes I think people don't realize that they're
Kyle James (08:40.386)
All right.
Zach Tsakiris (08:58.514)
Letting the government make these decisions and it might not feel like that But it's one of those things where the laws are constantly changing So if you die in test state, which means you're dying without a will The government is deciding everything it's deciding where your stuff goes And if your children are under 18, the government can even appoint guardianship to your kids, which is totally nuts A lot of people don't know that either. So yeah, the highlight here is
get attorney designed documents, get this process done and don't wait till a family member passes away or something bad happens where you're like, gosh, I gotta do this. Just get it done now in 10, 15 minutes and forget about it. think people spend a lot more time stressing about it or a lot more time avoiding thinking about it than the actual stress that's gonna come when something nasty happens and.
That's the last thing you want to be dealing with after a family member passes away or whatever is going through all the stuff and trying to figure it all out.
Kyle James (09:59.732)
Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, I've heard it like just the with a lot of families when they when they start having, you people passing away and things like that. And there's been like disputes and disagreements like, okay, who gets what it wasn't, there wasn't clarity to it. And I think one of the worst things like, so like, from my perspective, like, if I, you know, got forbid pass away, and all my belongings, cause strife and turmoil with all my all my kids and grandkids, like
What kind of legacy is that for me? You know what mean? And I don't think anybody wants that. So what we threw a little bit here, so you're using AI specifically, what does a process look like for someone who likes signs up? They're like, okay, I want to create a will. Obviously I can go pay thousands of dollars, but in this case, I want to go through fast will. Like what exactly is the AI doing, maybe on the backend to give users an idea of like why it's so fast and maybe even like why it's lower cost compared to going with someone who's more like more the professional legal counsel.
Zach Tsakiris (10:58.636)
Yeah, great question. So the first thing that we do is we just ask you a few basic questions like your name, what state you're in, whether you want to singles or couples package, a few additional questions. Then if you'd want to move forward with the plan, you go through, we have five sections. Each plan takes around 20 to 30 minutes to complete. And
It's very simple to use. It's one question at a time. We also have helpful information on terminology. So if you don't know what the executor is, a trustee is, we provide all that information. While being very simple to use, it is also very detailed. So we have everything from a pet section, a social media section. There's lots of customizations. You can request to play a certain song at your funeral, your burial ceremony, stuff like that. So there's lots of customizations. It's really just one question at a
and the ideas that the AI gets to know you as you go through the process. So based off of the certain answers to questions we ask you, we'll generate new questions just based off of that new information and then also hone in on those areas that you're really focused on. The other thing that I'll touch on is at the end of our flow, we also have a financial section to the flow. So if people do want to answer questions on retirement or insurance planning or just get a better idea on
what exactly is going on in their financial world, which is of course a very important time in the estate planning process. Oftentimes the two go together. Usually when they're looking at creating a will or trust, they're also kind of trying to get a good idea on what's going on in their financial world. So yeah, we do our best to kind of pair all these things together and have the AI understand you as you go through the process. And yeah, hopefully create a tailored plan exactly like you get while meeting within a turn.
Kyle James (12:48.288)
Yeah, for sure. for, know, obviously I know that some of this is long-term planning, right? It's not like someone makes it. I mean, sometimes I'm sure there's a case where people, something happens within a year or two, but most of all, manages long-term. But like, what types of like results have you been seeing so far for some of your, some of your clients and maybe even internally from, your perspective?
Zach Tsakiris (13:09.262)
Well, in terms of results, it's really been amazing on the advisor, insurance and benefits side. It's been amazing to really help so many advisors and so many agents meet new clients, prospect for new clients and just add value to their employees. We also do some larger PEPM per employee per month benefits work so we can enroll thousands of employees in our plan and get them a will or a trust for as little as $5 a month, $10 a month.
So it's been amazing to see the result of that and the impact that we're having in the financial services space. Of course, it's been great to sell wills and trusts online off of paid ads and cold traffic and stuff like that. But it's really been amazing to see the impact it's had on the financial services community because that's the space that I come from. I grew up selling life insurance and managing mutual funds and stuff like that. So it's been great to go back to all those institutions and just give them another tool in the toolbox.
You know, I obviously have that angle in understanding really what they're looking for, like discovery and auto fact finding and stuff. You know, we have a process where the user can go through the plan and then the advisor can be given sort of a financial report showing all of their assets and insurance and stuff like that. So it's been amazing to build products on that side of the business, just that I know are so helpful to advisors and see the amount of advisors that are integrating in with their clients and the amount of
integrating with their benefits. It's really cool to see.
Kyle James (14:38.05)
Yeah, that's awesome. And for maybe stepping into this year, next year, what are some of the fast wheels, maybe upcoming AI initiatives and like, where do you see it playing maybe some of the biggest role in your operations next?
Zach Tsakiris (14:50.798)
You know, I'm not sure in terms of large-scale one of the things I think that we really want to do is I think when we hit a certain volume of Conversations on our chat probably exceeding about 500 I think we'd like to switch over to an Ada bot or some other type of advanced AI Support, you know right now we do have the 24-7 live support, but our conversations are increasing month by month at a rapid basis so
I definitely want to increase or rather invest in some very high tech AI for our support side. We still want to leave that human touch there. We still want to be able to guide people through the process, but we're really interested in investing in the best AI support available on the market. So that's definitely something we'll be doing in in Q4 of 2025, just given how many conversations we're having on a day to day basis.
There's also some other cool features we're coming out with like D transfer, which has AI elements and irrevocable trust, which pursues the accounting market. But if I had to really give you an answer as to where we're focusing our next AI efforts, I would say it's on the support side, given how many conversations are increasing. Because when you're having 500 to a thousand conversations a day, building out that live support team just becomes a little bit more of an issue. So that would be my answer to that.
Kyle James (16:17.954)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I can imagine AI would definitely take how fast it can respond, everything else, you know, having the right data behind it. That can, that can make a big impact for, I would imagine like response rates, especially for someone who's looking and they're actively looking longer, the longer the wait, right? Typically the colder the leads get. So, and where can people, you know, for those listening in today, especially those, maybe the financial space, like where can they go to learn a little bit more about you, Zach, and then maybe some more about fast wheel.
Zach Tsakiris (16:46.092)
Yeah, so if you want to learn about our site, it's real easy. Just fastwill.com. F-A-S-T-W-I-L-L.com. You can also look at my personal social media. It's just Zach Sakaris, Z-A-C-H Sakaris, which is hard to spell. T-S-A-K-I-R-I-S, but it will probably be in the title. So yeah, I create my own content. I make videos on a whole bunch of stuff.
I go on podcasts as well. think that's one of the ways that we've really been able to stand out with our marketing is just sitting in front of the camera and telling people about it. We have a very casual, simple approach. We try not to be too corporate, too wish-washy. We just try and be approachable, non-intimidating, and straightforward. So I try and create as much content like that as possible. I try and have fun with it too. So yeah, either my personal socials you can just come to our website.
to learn more.
Kyle James (17:42.402)
Cool, awesome. Zach, appreciate you so much. Appreciate your perspective too on the fast wheel and the wheels and trust. Definitely the impact that you're making within the financial space. And everybody listening in today, if you're looking to implement AI, don't forget, don't try and do it yourself. The AI could cause stress that just may not be worth it. Schedule a call with GPT trainer, let them build out manager AI for you. Once again, that's gpt-trainer.com. Signing off for now, appreciate you, Zach. It's good talking with you,
Have a wonderful rest of your day, everybody. Looking forward to seeing everyone on the next episode of AI Chronicles.
