Tag: artificial-intelligence

If AI Agents Are Going to Make Financial Decisions, Who Should They Work For?

This week, FCA Chief Executive Nikhil Rathi made it clear that artificial intelligence is moving beyond assistance and into action. The next phase, he argued, is not simply AI helping people analyse information. It is the emergence of agentic systems that can coordinate, transact and execute decisions on behalf of others. The FCA has signalled … Continue reading If AI Agents Are Going to Make Financial Decisions, Who Should They Work For? →

Agency Starts With Owning Your Own Data

For decades, we have been encouraged to place our trust in institutions. Banks hold our money. Platforms hold our conversations. Governments hold our records. Technology companies hold our digital lives. In return, we are promised convenience. Most of the time, the arrangement works. Until it doesn't. A company is acquired. A platform changes its terms. … Continue reading Agency Starts With Owning Your Own Data →

Is AI Making Investors More Reckless — or More Capable?

If AI is already influencing how affluent investors research, assess and feel about risk, is the real question whether advisers can control its use — or whether they can help clients use it wisely while keeping final agency with the individual? HSBC’s research suggests AI is no longer peripheral. Among nearly 10,000 affluent and high-net-worth … Continue reading Is AI Making Investors More Reckless — or More Capable? →

Why We Stopped Designing Apps and Started Designing Agency Infrastructure

At first, we thought we were building a collection of tools. My Life™ began as a sovereign personal record. Navigator™ emerged as a way of helping people make sense of complexity. Investigator™, The Leveller™, Get SAFE™, Get Secure™, and Goliathon™ each addressed a different challenge that people encounter when navigating financial systems, life transitions, or … Continue reading Why We Stopped Designing Apps and Started Designing Agency Infrastructure →

The Trusted Agency-Restoration Layer: Helping People Use AI Without Being Used by AI

Financial services is entering a new phase. For decades, the industry has been organised around products, advice, distribution, regulation, platforms, documentation, and disclosure. The consumer has usually sat at the end of that chain: informed, nudged, sold to, advised, protected, categorised, risk-rated, and asked to consent. But something deeper is now changing. Artificial intelligence is … Continue reading The Trusted Agency-Restoration Layer: Helping People Use AI Without Being Used by AI →

The PFS Agenda Tells Us Where Financial Planning Is Heading — But Also What It Still Struggles to Name

Financial planning is moving beyond products. The next step is to move beyond dependency. Financial planning is moving beyond products. That is good. For too long, the public understanding of financial advice has been shaped by pensions, investments, tax wrappers, platforms, funds, protection products, and later-life lending. These things matter. They can be useful. They … Continue reading The PFS Agenda Tells Us Where Financial Planning Is Heading — But Also What It Still Struggles to Name →

SJP’s £220bn Question: What Happens When Clients and Advisers Stop Deferring?

The old wealth model depended on two quiet forms of deference. Clients deferred to advisers. Advisers deferred to institutions. That was the bargain beneath much of modern wealth management. The client was asked to trust the adviser. The adviser was asked to trust the firm. The firm provided the brand, proposition, investment architecture, supervision, process, … Continue reading SJP’s £220bn Question: What Happens When Clients and Advisers Stop Deferring? →

Consumer-Side AI: The Public Interest Use Case Financial Services Must Not Ignore

There is a missing half in the financial services AI conversation. At the moment, much of the debate is about how firms use artificial intelligence. How firms govern it. How firms test it. How firms manage risk. How firms explain AI-assisted decisions. How firms improve efficiency, productivity, compliance, and customer service. All of that matters. … Continue reading Consumer-Side AI: The Public Interest Use Case Financial Services Must Not Ignore →

Who Is Protected When Public-Interest Harm Prevention Tools Are Restricted?

There is a strange irony in trying to protect people before harm happens. You build a tool that helps ordinary people read what they are being asked to sign. You make it simple. You make it affordable. You design it to slow people down at the moment of risk, before they give away rights, control, … Continue reading Who Is Protected When Public-Interest Harm Prevention Tools Are Restricted? →