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?
Tag: artificial-intelligence
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”?
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?
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.
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?
