A recent leader column in Money Marketing by Tom Browne captures a pivotal moment for the profession: artificial intelligence is already embedded in advice workflows, yet governance, training, and regulatory clarity are lagging behind.
This isn’t a future trend. It’s a structural shift already underway.
Below is a strategic reading of what the article signals — and why it matters commercially, professionally, and philosophically for planners deciding how to position themselves in the next phase of the advice market.
1) What the Article Gets Exactly Right
The piece identifies three realities reshaping advice:
▸ AI adoption is happening informally
Most usage is not through official platforms. It’s staff quietly using tools to draft emails, summarise documents, or interpret data.
Meaning:
Innovation is happening bottom-up, not top-down. Firms are not driving change — individuals are.
▸ Clients are already using AI
With roughly half of adults experimenting with AI for financial guidance, clients are arriving informed, opinionated, and sometimes misinformed.
Meaning:
The knowledge asymmetry advisers historically relied on is collapsing.
▸ Governance is lagging adoption
Over half of financial services staff using AI have had no training on safe or compliant use.
Meaning:
Risk isn’t coming from AI itself.
It’s coming from human systems not keeping pace.
2) The Hidden Market Shift Most Planners Haven’t Seen Yet
The article frames AI primarily as a compliance and data-handling issue. That’s accurate — but incomplete.
The deeper shift is structural:
| Old Advice Model | Emerging Reality |
|---|---|
| Information scarcity | Information abundance |
| Adviser as knowledge gatekeeper | Adviser as interpreter |
| Process value | Insight value |
| Product expertise | Human understanding |
AI automates the technical layer of planning.
Which means planners must move up the value chain — or be pulled down it.
3) The Real Strategic Risk Isn’t AI — It’s Role Compression
When tools can:
- model scenarios
- summarise client data
- draft reports
- compare investments
the technical skillset that once defined professional differentiation becomes commoditised.
The market consequence is predictable:
Planners who define themselves by technical output face margin compression.
Planners who define themselves by human insight gain pricing power.
This is why some advisers feel uneasy but can’t articulate why. They sense the ground shifting beneath their professional identity.
4) Why the “Highly Capable Intern” Analogy Matters
The article’s metaphor — AI as a talented intern needing supervision — is useful, but it also reveals a strategic truth:
An intern does not replace a strategist.
It replaces junior labour.
So the profession is bifurcating into two groups:
Group A — AI-Assisted Technicians
Compete on efficiency and speed.
Group B — Human Strategists
Compete on wisdom and judgement.
Only one of those groups is insulated from commoditisation.
5) What Changes When Planners Cross the Total Wealth Planning Bridge
Crossing the bridge is not about tools.
It’s about identity.
Traditional advice positions value around:
- product selection
- modelling outputs
- technical compliance
Total Wealth Planning positions value around:
- decision clarity
- life architecture
- behavioural alignment
- human capital optimisation
AI strengthens this second model because it removes friction from the first.
In other words:
AI threatens product-centred planners.
AI empowers human-centred planners.
6) Commercial Implications Most Firms Haven’t Calculated
If current trends continue, the advice market will split into three tiers:
Tier 1 — Automated Guidance Platforms
Low cost, scalable, algorithm-driven.
Tier 2 — Hybrid Advisers
Human advisers augmented by AI.
Tier 3 — Transformational Planners
Human-first strategists using AI as infrastructure.
Margins, trust, and demand increase as you move up the ladder.
The danger is not AI replacing advisers.
The danger is advisers staying positioned where AI is strongest.
7) The Strategic Question Every Planner Should Be Asking
Not
“Should I use AI?”
But
“Which part of my role does AI make obsolete — and which part does it make more valuable?”
Those who answer that clearly will redesign their model.
Those who don’t will gradually be redesigned by the market.
Bottom Line
The article warns advisers to build guardrails around AI use.
That’s sensible operational advice.
But the deeper strategic lesson is this:
The profession is not just adopting new tools.
It is entering a new era.
The planners who thrive will be the ones who reposition early — from technical executors to human-capital strategists — while others are still debating policies.
Invitation
For planners sensing this shift and wanting to explore what the next-generation role looks like in practice, there is a clear pathway to step across and experience it first-hand.
Ready to Step Across the Bridge?
If you’re sensing that traditional planning is no longer enough for the clients you truly want to serve, that instinct is worth paying attention to.
The next evolution of your professional journey is not about abandoning what you know. It’s about expanding it — integrating human capital, behavioural insight, and life architecture into the financial planning framework you already understand.
The Academy of Life Planning invites you to explore that transition.
Across the bridge you’ll discover:
- A proven framework for integrating human and financial capital
- A professional pathway to becoming a Total Wealth Planner
- Tools that deepen client outcomes and professional fulfilment
- A global community of forward-thinking planners shaping the future of the profession
You don’t have to leap.
You just have to look.
Start by exploring the pathway and seeing whether it aligns with the planner you feel called to become.
The bridge is open.
Academy of Life Planning 