Fiduciary or Free Thinker? Why the “Best Interests” Badge May Not Mean What You Think

For years, consumers have been told to look for one word when choosing a financial professional: “Fiduciary.” The term sounds reassuring. Protective. Dependable. It suggests the person sitting across the table is legally and ethically required to put your interests first. And in many ways, that is true. But there is a deeper question very … Continue reading Fiduciary or Free Thinker? Why the “Best Interests” Badge May Not Mean What You Think →

Restoring Human Agency in the Age of AI

What Health Services Can Teach Financial Planning About the Future of Human Capability For decades, both healthcare and financial services have operated around a remarkably similar assumption: The expert knows best. In healthcare, the doctor diagnoses, prescribes, and directs. In financial services, the adviser recommends, structures, and manages. The individual — patient or client — … Continue reading Restoring Human Agency in the Age of AI →

The Missing Voice at Adviser Conferences: What Advisers Aren’t Hearing About AI

What sits underneath many industry conferences is an uncomfortable structural reality: the ecosystem is largely self-referential. The sponsors fund the event.The media platforms depend on industry advertising.The exhibitors sell to advisers.The speakers often come from firms benefiting from the existing model.The audience attends within that commercial architecture. That does not automatically make the discussions wrong. … Continue reading The Missing Voice at Adviser Conferences: What Advisers Aren’t Hearing About AI →

Beyond Distribution: Why Some Financial Planning Firms Are Reconsidering the Regulatory Perimeter

For more than three decades, much of the UK financial advice profession has operated around a relatively stable commercial model: Attract assets.Recommend products.Manage portfolios.Maintain recurring revenue. For many firms, that model built successful businesses and helped millions of people access financial products they may otherwise never have used. But something important is changing. The combination … Continue reading Beyond Distribution: Why Some Financial Planning Firms Are Reconsidering the Regulatory Perimeter →

When Institutions Call Human Agency Dangerous

There was a revealing moment this week in the financial services industry. Speaking at a financial crime conference in London, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority warned that artificial intelligence is accelerating fraud, cybercrime, sanctions evasion, and money laundering. Criminals, we were told, are becoming faster, more organised, and more adaptive. AI, according … Continue reading When Institutions Call Human Agency Dangerous →

Op-ed: The Great Independent Advice Illusion

[A reflection on Citywire's article, How SJP advisers are using Policy Services to pitch independent advice 14 May 2026] By Steve Conley The financial advice profession has spent decades arguing over a question that, from a genuine life planning perspective, may matter far less than the industry would like to believe. Restricted or independent? Whole … Continue reading Op-ed: The Great Independent Advice Illusion →

When Institutions Start Calling Agency Dangerous

Why agency-expanding technologies are often resisted precisely when they begin dissolving dependency structures For most of modern history, institutions have held a structural advantage over individuals. Not always because they were more intelligent.Not always because they were malicious.But because they possessed something ordinary people did not: Access. Access to information.Access to expertise.Access to analytical capability.Access … Continue reading When Institutions Start Calling Agency Dangerous →

Do People Need Life Planning Anymore?

There is a quiet question emerging beneath the noise of modern self-improvement, financial planning, coaching, and even parts of the AI revolution: What happens when the goals no longer feel meaningful? For decades, society has organised itself around achievement. Earn more. Accumulate more. Optimise more. Retire earlier. Scale faster. Build the business. Hit the target. … Continue reading Do People Need Life Planning Anymore? →

Everest, AI, and the Tilting Platform of Power

There is a game in the TV programme Gladiators called Everest. Two people stand on a narrow elevated platform. One is the Gladiator. The other is the competitor. Their objective is simple: force the other person off balance and off the edge. But the most interesting part of the game is not the pushing. It … Continue reading Everest, AI, and the Tilting Platform of Power →

AI Should Not Replace Human Meaning — It Should Help Restore Human Agency

For much of the public conversation, artificial intelligence is being framed in extremes. Either: AI will save humanityor AI will destroy it. In reality, the more important question may be much simpler: What role should AI actually play in human life? At the Academy of Life Planning, we believe the answer matters enormously because the … Continue reading AI Should Not Replace Human Meaning — It Should Help Restore Human Agency →