When consumers can interrogate the advice they receive, will the profession's traditional business model withstand scrutiny? The Retail Distribution Review removed commission bias. Consumer AI may expose asset-retention bias. And Consumer Duty could make that exposure commercially consequential. These three developments are connected. Together, they could fundamentally change the future of financial planning. For decades, … Continue reading The Perfect Storm: Consumer Duty, AI and the Future of Financial Planning
Category: Human Agency & AI
How AI and technology alter the balance of capability, control and power between people and institutions.
From Commission Bias to Asset-Retention Bias: How AI Will Transform Financial Planning
The UK's Retail Distribution Review (RDR) banned commission on advised retail investment products in 2012 because the regulator recognised that remuneration structures created conflicts of interest, distorted financial advice and caused consumer harm. Advisers could be incentivised to recommend particular providers, products or transactions because of how they were paid. But did the RDR eliminate … Continue reading From Commission Bias to Asset-Retention Bias: How AI Will Transform Financial Planning
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 … Continue reading Clients have AI too. What are planners for now?
AI Is Making Financial Planning Faster. Is It Making People More Capable?
By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning | 12 October 2026 Financial planning firms are becoming better at using AI. They can capture conversations, organise information and produce documents with less manual work. That is a real improvement. But a faster process does not tell us whether the person at its centre understands their … Continue reading AI Is Making Financial Planning Faster. Is It Making People More Capable?
AI-led advice—or an AI-led route to your money?
Open comparison can expose the cost of distribution. Commercially captured AI can channel customers into it. By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning A recent Citywire headline announced Moneybox’s plans to roll out AI-led advice. With two million customers and £23 billion in assets under administration, the story promises an explanation of how the … Continue reading AI-led advice—or an AI-led route to your money?
Clients have AI too. What happens to your business when they become more capable—and need less of what you currently sell?
Why Customer Operating Systems belong at the centre of the conversation about the future of financial planning. By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning Imagine your next prospective client arriving with their financial records organised, their objectives written down and several possible futures already explored. They have compared charges. Read the documents. Identified inconsistencies. … Continue reading Clients have AI too. What happens to your business when they become more capable—and need less of what you currently sell?
Who Is the AI Operating System For?
A firm can become more efficient while its clients remain just as dependent. That is the question beneath this week's agentic AI announcements. Imagine joining a wealth management firm. You upload identification, answer questions about your finances and supply documents. An AI agent notices what is missing, prepares the forms, starts identity and sanctions checks, … Continue reading Who Is the AI Operating System For?
Customers Have AI Too!
The profession is asking how AI can make advisers more productive. What happens when it makes customers more capable? This week, financial planners gather in Windsor to “turn the page on established thinking”. Here is the page I would turn. Imagine your next prospective client arriving on a video call. They have organised their financial … Continue reading Customers Have AI Too!
Who validated the warning about AI and your money?
An evidence audit of a financial AI headline, its commercial context and the poll that followedSteve Conley | Academy of Life Planning | 23 September 2026 I watched a poll ask people how much of their money they would let AI decide with. Before they answered, it told them that chatbots had got 57% of … Continue reading Who validated the warning about AI and your money?
Trust, Curiosity and Optimism in the Age of AI
The qualities that help leaders reimagine institutions can also prevent them from seeing what their institutions have become Trust, curiosity and optimism sound like exactly the qualities leaders need in the age of AI. Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, recently discussed all three in a McKinsey interview about institutional longevity, technological change … Continue reading Trust, Curiosity and Optimism in the Age of AI
