New research puts AI almost level with human advisers as a comfortable place to ask financial questions. The bigger challenge is what happens to the business model when clients need fewer answers from you. For thirty years, I have watched a pattern repeat across financial services. As consumers gain visibility, understanding and the means to … Continue reading When your clients already have the answers, what are your fees for?
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There is a place for you in the future we are building.
There is a place for you in the future we are building. Helping financial advisers find a worthwhile role in a world where people become more capable. What happens to your work when the people you help can do more for themselves? For a financial adviser, that question can feel threatening. You have spent years … Continue reading There is a place for you in the future we are building.
Good financial planning has a future. Investment intermediation must earn its place.
When AI helps consumers understand, question and decide, the value of human support cannot automatically justify the cost of the investment channel attached to it. Ask what happens to financial services when consumers become dramatically more capable, and a familiar defence appears. Good financial planning is about more than technical competence. People value coaching, education, … Continue reading Good financial planning has a future. Investment intermediation must earn its place.
What happens when retail investment consumers become “superintelligent”?
When clients can interrogate the expertise they once had to take on trust, the investment industry faces a question bigger than automation: what are people still paying to depend on? The days when retail investment advisers could shout down their critics and expect everyone else to look the other way should be well and truly … Continue reading What happens when retail investment consumers become “superintelligent”?
T.F.O friday: Building a Total Family Office for Every Family
Most families have pieces of a plan. Few have a plan that connects the pieces. A pension here. A mortgage there. A will written years ago. An ageing parent who may need care. Children finding their feet. Perhaps a business, a property, or responsibilities shared across generations. Each part may have received attention. But who … Continue reading T.F.O friday: Building a Total Family Office for Every Family
A £50 meeting with Steve Conley
A £50 meeting with Steve Conley "I need experienced help with a specific decision, without signing up to an ongoing advice relationship." If that sounds like you, this meeting is for you. About 50 minutes, £50, one conversation about the thing that matters right now. Most of the questions people bring are an 18-month problem, … Continue reading A £50 meeting with Steve Conley
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?
Your client’s life is bigger than the FCA perimeter
Why Total Wealth Planners need to change the centre of their practice By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning12 October 2026 A person asks for help making sense of retirement. Before long, the conversation turns to pension consolidation, investment funds, regulated advice and what the Financial Conduct Authority will allow. But the person’s question … Continue reading Your client’s life is bigger than the FCA perimeter
When do you change your business model? Before the cash cow stops paying.
AI may take years to reshape financial planning. The time available to build a viable alternative could be much shorter. By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning Your business is profitable. Clients are staying. The existing model still pays the bills. Meanwhile, a new technology promises to change what customers can do for themselves … Continue reading When do you change your business model? Before the cash cow stops paying.
Human Capital and Total Wealth Planning: Seven Lessons from the Research
By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning Abstract Financial planning can describe accumulated assets in considerable detail while giving less systematic attention to the capabilities through which people earn, adapt, contribute and exercise choice. This article examines six supplied papers on human capital, education, income distribution and sustainable development. It develops seven lessons for … Continue reading Human Capital and Total Wealth Planning: Seven Lessons from the Research
