The ‘optimum’ number of clients which an adviser can effectively look after is much discussed at all levels in our business. For those outside it might sound like the ‘how many angels can fit on the head of a pin’ theological argument, and one person’s ‘looked after’ can be another’s ‘they charge me a fortune and I only hear from them once a year’. How can AI help? Not by sending robo-advisers to sit on your sofa but, this article argues, by cutting down the hours of report writing which our super-regulated business requires, and freeing up the time of the real-life people whose time and reassurance most clients want and need. ‘Ask 100 advisers and you’ll get 100 different answers’, it also says, and it will ever be thus, as it remains, for better, I’d say, a people- and not tech-led profession; see earlier articles on the proliferation of small firms which comprise 80% of the adviser population. And while not everyone wants their hands metaphorically holding, and internet DIY is great for many, many still do. Hopefully and thankfully.
“Majority of IFAs have no plans to use AI in their practices”
I remember sometime in the 90’s, attending a presentation by a successful adviser providing helpful hints to an audience of wannabes, young and old.
