Clients have AI too. What are planners for now?

By Steve Conley | Academy of Life Planning | 2 November 2026

Here is something our profession is slow to admit.

Clients have AI too.

They can ask questions at midnight. They can translate unfamiliar language, compare explanations and ask what might be missing from a recommendation.

They can also ask a question that should make every professional pause:

“What should I ask my adviser before I agree to this?”

I see an opportunity here. When people become better equipped to question us, we have a chance to build a better relationship with them.

Three in four AJ Bell customers are direct

AJ Bell’s year-end trading update, published on 22 October, reported 602,000 direct-to-consumer platform customers and 194,000 advised customers. That means 75.6% of its platform customers are direct.[5]

The growth tells an even stronger story. Over the year, direct customer numbers rose by 140,000, compared with 12,000 on the advised platform. Direct customers also accounted for £7.8 billion of the platform’s £9.7 billion net inflows—just over 80%.[5]

These are AJ Bell’s figures, rather than a survey of all UK savers. And direct investing does not establish whether someone ever seeks professional help elsewhere. But the commercial signal is clear: a substantial market already exists for people managing investments without an adviser through that platform.

People are already doing it themselves. AI is giving them more tools with which to do it.

The client has joined the conversation

In August, research conducted by the lang cat for Wealthtime surveyed 175 UK advice professionals. Some 63% reported that clients were using AI in relation to their financial advice. Advisers estimated that, on average, 28% of their clients used it to some extent.

The reported uses are revealing: 59% of advisers said clients used AI to prepare questions, while 50% reported clients checking or validating advice already received. These are advisers’ observations, rather than a direct count of consumer behaviour. But they suggest that AI is entering the relationship on the client’s side of the table.[1]

That changes the conversation.

A client may arrive with questions about the fee, the alternatives, the assumptions or the reason a recommendation fits their life.

Those questions are an invitation to demonstrate value.

The regulator sees it too

On 19 October, the FCA’s Jessica Rusu described how AI is changing what happens before a consumer ever reaches a regulated firm. People are turning to general-purpose AI tools for financial information and advice, creating opportunities for wider access alongside confusion about protection.[2]

The FCA’s August research gives that concern substance. Four in five respondents had used AI for help with investing. The sample was specific: 666 UK adults aged 18–40 who held investments or would consider buying them within the next year. It does not describe four in five people across Britain.

Among those surveyed, 44% mistakenly believed AI-generated financial information was regulated, and 32% wrongly expected FSCS or Financial Ombudsman protection if AI advice went wrong.[3]

Access to answers is growing. The ability to judge those answers still needs work.

That is an opening for useful professional support.

Banks are changing the economics of human support

In early October, Citywire reported proposals for HSBC to cut around 70% of UK adviser and relationship manager roles as part of an AI pivot.[4]

HSBC is part of a wider shift. On 22 October, Barclays announced around 5,000 job reductions, with 1,000 already completed and the remainder expected by year-end. Reuters reported that about 60% would affect support functions, including developers, as technology and AI enable greater productivity.[6]

These are broader banking cuts, rather than 5,000 financial adviser redundancies. But they reinforce the direction of travel: banks are redesigning services and reducing staffing as technology changes the economics of delivery.

Read that alongside AJ Bell’s direct customer growth. Consumers are increasingly equipped to act for themselves, while institutions are changing how much human support they provide and where they provide it.

The opportunity is to build capability as institutions automate.

That outcome needs deliberate work.

A bank can automate a process while leaving the customer just as dependent on the bank.

An AI system can make a recommendation easier to accept without making it easier to understand.

The question is whose objectives the technology serves.

Does it help the institution process the customer? Does it help the person understand their choices? Sometimes it can do both. We should examine the incentives rather than assume they align.

Institutional AI can complete processes for the firm. Sovereign AI should build capability for the person.

By sovereign AI, I mean an approach in which people retain meaningful control over their information, objectives and decisions. That requires deliberate design. It does not happen simply because someone opens a chatbot.

Information was never the whole job

When someone can ask a machine almost anything at midnight, the value of a professional changes.

Expertise still matters. So do judgement, experience and accountability. But access to information becomes a weaker reason to remain permanently dependent on an expert.

Imagine someone asking, “Can I afford to work less?”

AI may help organise their spending, explain cash flow and explore assumptions. A skilled planner can help them examine what sits behind the question.

Are they exhausted? Caring for a parent? Afraid of losing their identity? Assuming that paid work is their only source of security?

The task is to connect the financial question with the life being lived.

A good planner also helps people recognise uncertainty, test their reasoning and identify when a decision needs a regulated adviser, solicitor or tax specialist.

The measure of success is whether the person leaves better able to understand, choose and act.

Continuous agency. Episodic expertise.

This is the model I believe we should build.

Continuous agency: the person retains an ongoing ability to understand their position, revisit their priorities and make choices.

Episodic expertise: professional support is available when complexity, uncertainty or a major life event makes it useful.

Support can increase when someone needs it. Some people will need sustained help. Agency includes choosing to delegate, provided that choice is informed and can be revisited.

But the default ambition should be clear: expertise should make people progressively more capable.

For firms built around recurring charges, that raises a commercial question. Can the business prosper when the client needs less help?

We need business models that reward progress towards independence.

Build the capability between meetings

At the Academy of Life Planning, we are developing practical alternatives around that ambition.

The Academy provides education and a movement for human agency. Total Wealth Plans provides tools to support planning between conversations. Total Wealth Planners provide human support when it matters. Get SAFE supports people rebuilding their position after financial exploitation.

The planner helps the person operate their own life.

That means welcoming questions prepared with AI, checking claims against original sources, making fees and scope clear, and leaving people with practical next steps they can own.

It also means being honest about AI. A fluent answer can be wrong. Sensitive information needs care. A chatbot is not a substitute for the protections attached to regulated advice.

Self-directed by default. Supported when it matters.

Clients have AI too.

If they can now research, compare and challenge what we tell them, what is the part of our work that earns their trust?

And after working with us, are they better able to live without us?

The signs are there. The water level of client capability is rising. Will you ignore the signs—or join us in building the ark?

Bring me the problem, not the portfolio.

If you are rethinking your planning business, or facing a decision about your own money and life, book a 50-minute Strategy Meeting on Zoom for £50 through the Academy of Life Planning.

We will explore the problem, the support you need and a practical next step.

Sources

Research checked on 2 November 2026.