Every few generations, technology rewrites the rules of society. The steam engine drove the Industrial Revolution. The internet transformed communication, commerce, and culture. Now, AI is reshaping entire industries, including financial services and insurance.
For planners in the Academy, the message is clear: AI isn’t optional. It’s existential. The firms and advisers who embrace it will thrive. Those who dabble or delay risk being left behind.
From Insurance to Planning: The Policy Parallel
Insurance companies are learning that AI cannot be treated as an add-on. Tinkering with a chatbot or running pilots doesn’t create lasting value. The real gains come when AI is embedded into entire domains—claims, underwriting, sales, and service—rewiring the business from end to end.
The same applies to financial planning. Our “domains” are life planning, cashflow, coaching, investment support, compliance, and client engagement. If we merely use AI to speed up a single task, we’ll achieve little. But if we reimagine whole domains through AI—client onboarding, human capital development, or the delivery of holistic reports—the impact is transformative.
Six Lessons for Academy Members
- Adopt a bold vision, not small experiments
The planners who thrive will be those who treat AI as central to their practice. Ask: How can AI help me plan life before money, scale empowerment, and deepen client trust? - Rewire workflows, don’t bolt on tools
AI must be woven into the GAME Plan™ cycle—Goals, Actions, Means, Execution—rather than dropped in as a one-off feature. - Build reusable components
A client letter generator can also create regulator responses, marketing posts, or coaching scripts. Reusable AI modules become your intellectual property. - Empower through empathy
AI now produces clear, warm, empathetic communication at scale. Use it to support clients not just with numbers, but with understanding and care. - Invest in adoption and change management
Technology only works if people use it. Planners must shift mindsets—seeing AI as a partner, not a threat—and bring clients along on the journey. - Measure outcomes, not activities
Don’t celebrate having an AI tool. Measure its impact: fewer client drop-offs, faster onboarding, stronger empowerment scores, clearer financial decisions.
Why This Matters Now
Just as insurance customers will come to expect AI-powered accuracy and personalization, your clients will expect AI-enabled financial planning—faster, clearer, more transparent, and more personal than ever before.
The Academy exists to ensure this transformation serves empowerment, not exploitation. We don’t adopt AI to extract wealth from clients—we adopt it to liberate human capital, foster self-reliance, and build sustainable livelihoods.
The Call to Action
As members of the Academy, you stand at the frontier. Ask yourself:
- Which domain of my practice can I rewire with AI first?
- How can I embed my philosophy into reusable AI systems?
- Am I building a future where AI empowers clients—or where it replaces me?
The future is coming fast. Let’s make sure it’s the Age of Empowerment, not just another age of extraction.
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Key Lessons
Here are the key lessons for Academy members drawn from this article, The future of AI in the insurance industry, July 15, 2025 | Report. McKinsey & Company.
1. AI is no longer optional – it’s existential
Just as the steam engine or the internet redefined industries, AI will transform financial planning and insurance. Planners must either integrate AI deeply into their practice or risk irrelevance. For Academy members, this means treating AI as central to the client journey, not a bolt-on tool.
2. Don’t dabble – rewire
Pilots and scattered use cases rarely shift the needle. Real impact comes from domain-level transformation—rethinking entire areas (e.g., client onboarding, life planning, investment coaching) with AI woven through the workflow. For planners, that means embedding AI into how you set goals, map actions, and deliver advice, not just experimenting with one chatbot or calculator.
3. Reusability is power
AI components are transferable: a system built for drafting client comms can also produce regulatory letters, marketing posts, or risk assessments. Planners should think in terms of building reusable AI modules (Notion templates, GitHub repositories, co-pilot scripts) that can be applied across multiple client needs.
4. Human capital + AI = new IP
Best-in-class insurers turn their unique expertise into proprietary AI systems. Likewise, Academy members can codify their planning philosophy (GAME Plan™, Kokoro scorecards, empowerment models) into AI-assisted processes—turning intangible wisdom into structured intellectual property.
5. Change management matters as much as technology
AI transformations fail when people resist using them. Insurers that succeed invest as much in adoption, culture, and training as they do in the tech itself. For Academy members, this is about mindset: embracing AI as a partner, teaching clients how to use it responsibly, and ensuring planners see AI as augmenting—not replacing—their role.
6. Scale through modular, flexible systems
AI-native insurers rely on modular “multiagent systems” that evolve as technology does. Planners should avoid locking into rigid, off-the-shelf apps that could become tomorrow’s legacy. Instead, use open, composable stacks (Notion + GitHub + ChatGPT + APIs) that can adapt and scale with the mission.
7. Compete on empathy and personalization
Insurance is fundamentally about trust, risk, and human care. AI now brings hyperpersonalization and empathetic communication at scale. For Academy planners, this means using AI to create more empathetic, human-sensitive client journeys—letters, reports, coaching scripts—that often read warmer than what humans can draft in a hurry.
8. Align strategy with measurable outcomes
AI leadership isn’t about shiny tools; it’s about measurable improvements—growth, retention, reduced costs, client satisfaction. Academy members should tie AI use to clear client-centric metrics: reduced churn, faster onboarding, greater empowerment scores, or tangible human capital growth.
✅ Takeaway for Academy members:
AI is not just a digital assistant; it’s the infrastructure of the new age of empowerment. To stay relevant, planners must adopt bold, enterprise-wide AI strategies, codify their wisdom into reusable systems, and lead clients into an empathetic, hyperpersonalized future of financial life planning.
Academy of Life Planning 