Jessica Lantz

Oct 28, 2026

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What’s New in October: Smarter AI onboarding, new Scenarios strategies, and a faster path to executed estate plans

October is Estate Planning Awareness Month, and this release covers every stage of a plan, from the first conversation with a client to the day their documents are signed. Here’s what we’ve been working on to help you guide clients through the planning process, from start to finish. 

Faster to the moments that matter

Turn answers into opportunities with an enhanced Estate Health Check™

The challenge: Without a simple, low-pressure conversation starter, many estate planning discussions never happen.

The solution:

• Send a personalized link that clients and prospects complete on their phone in a few minutes, giving you a clear view of where their estate stands before the first meeting
• Share personalized results with prioritized next steps, each tied to an action like moving a client with outdated documents into Vanilla Document Builder®, so more first conversations lead to plans that get built
•  Use Estate Health Check across your entire book of clients to see where planning opportunities are concentrated

Estate Health Check is now generally available, giving you a repeatable way to open the estate planning conversation with new prospects and long-standing clients alike. 

Give clients a faster path to an executed estate plan

The challenge: Once estate planning documents are drafted, coordinating a notary appointment is often where progress stalls, and the plan isn’t legally binding until it’s signed and notarized.

The solution:

• Connect clients who complete Vanilla Document Builder® to a nationwide network of more than 140,000 credentialed, background-checked notaries with Mobile Notary, powered by Snapdocs
• Give clients the option to book a notary at a time and place that works for them, in all 50 states and more than 70 languages
• Make booking simple for clients, with their state and document details carried over and pricing shown before they book

When a notary is within reach the moment clients finish their documents, more plans make it to the finish line and start protecting the families they were built for.

AI that elevates you

Use AI to streamline client onboarding 

The challenge: Before planning can start, someone has to work through a new client’s estate documents and turn them into a usable profile.

The solution:

• Upload a client’s documents, and VAI’s® Onboarding Agent extracts the people, family relationships, and fiduciaries, then cross-checks its own work before showing you the results
• Stay in control of what goes into every profile, with VAI flagging anything it couldn’t resolve with confidence and asking clarifying questions before anything is finalized
• Trace every detail back to the passage it came from in the source document, so you can confirm the profile before you import it

Get new clients into Vanilla sooner, with a profile you can trust from the start. Now available in beta.

Confidence in every client conversation

Show clients how a new beneficiary designation changes their estate

The challenge: Beneficiary designations are one of the simplest planning changes a client can make, but without modeling the outcome, it’s hard to show why a change is worth making.

The solution:

• Model hypothetical inheritance changes on accounts and life insurance policies with the new Beneficiary Changes strategy in Vanilla Scenarios®
• Name family members, trusts, or charities as beneficiaries, including ones that aren’t in the client’s profile yet, without making any changes to the actual estate plan 
• See how a change, such as leaving a traditional IRA to charity, impacts an estate side by side with the existing plan

When clients can see what a change does to their estate, it’s easier to recommend it with confidence and help them follow through. 

Bring rolling GRAT strategies into your client conversations

The challenge: Rolling GRATs are often modeled in standalone spreadsheets or by outside specialists, separate from the rest of the client’s estate, which makes the strategy hard to present and easy to leave out of the conversation.

The solution:

• Model a series of short-term GRATs within the client’s estate using the new Rolling GRAT strategy in Vanilla Scenarios
• Adjust the starting amount, term length, and number of GRATs, and see how each GRAT funds the next one 
• Visualize how the strategy changes estate taxes and what reaches beneficiaries, alongside the current estate and any other strategies

Modeling rolling GRATs in Vanilla helps you offer clients with appreciating assets, like business owners, an advanced strategy as part of your planning work.

Add your own words to client reports

The challenge: The PDF report walks clients through their estate plan, but your guidance on what matters most for their family often lives only in the meeting.

The solution:

• Add custom notes anywhere on a report page, like your recommendation next to a scenario comparison or next steps beside a planning opportunity
• See every note in the final PDF exactly where you placed it, styled to match your firm’s brand
• Standardize report output and support your firm’s compliance requirements, with org-wide controls for who can add notes, and on which pages 

Make each report your own with custom notes, placing your voice and expertise exactly where you decide they belong.

Support for Vanilla customers now lives right inside the platform.

Getting help in Vanilla just got faster. You can now chat live with our Customer Care team right inside the platform. 

Here’s how it works:

• Ask the AI assistant. Get an instant answer and a link to the right help article.
• Connect to a live agent. If your question isn’t resolved, or you’d rather talk to a person, we’ll connect you to a live agent. Live Chat hours are from Monday through Friday, 10AM – 5PM ET. 
• Submit a ticket. Outside live chat hours? Submit a ticket from the same chat window and our team will follow up.

Exploring Vanilla for the first time? Schedule a demo. Already a Vanilla customer? Reach out to our CSM team to see these features in action.

Note that all unpublished features and enhancements mentioned are subject to change in both content and timeline without notice. Vanilla reserves the right to modify or cancel roadmap items at any time.