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.
Tag: artificial-intelligence
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?
HSBC’s adviser cuts: we have seen this before. This time, redesign the role.
AI creates an opportunity to combine continuous personal capability with episodic human expertise. Cutting advisers is only one possible response. By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning7 October 2026 Reading the news that HSBC could cut around 70% of its UK wealth financial advisers gave me a strong sense of déjà vu. Fifteen years … Continue reading HSBC’s adviser cuts: we have seen this before. This time, redesign the role.
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?
Your Life. Your Money. Your OS.
Academy OS Foundations introduces a new way to manage life and money—one in which the individual, not the institution, operates the system Most people already have a financial operating system. The problem is that it usually belongs to somebody else. Their pension information sits with providers. Their financial plan sits in an adviser’s system. Their … Continue reading Your Life. Your Money. Your OS.
The Planner of the Future Will Not Be the Client’s Operating System
Discover the professional pathways at the Academy of Life Planning Information is no longer scarce. Agency still is. Artificial intelligence can explain concepts, organise information, model possibilities and answer questions at any hour of the day. That changes what people can do for themselves. It also changes what they need from a professional. The future … Continue reading The Planner of the Future Will Not Be the Client’s Operating System
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
