How Do You Compete with ChatGPT?

AI and the Future of Financial Advice

Artificial intelligence is changing how people find information, make decisions and manage their finances. Tools such as ChatGPT can explain complex subjects in seconds, compare options and answer questions at any time of day.

For financial advisers, that creates an obvious question: if clients can ask AI, why do they need you?

The answer isn’t to compete with AI at what it does best. It is to become more valuable at the things technology cannot easily replace.

Information is no longer the differentiator

Financial advice has always involved knowledge. Understanding products, regulations, taxation, investments and financial planning remains essential.

But access to information is changing.

A client can now ask an AI tool to explain the difference between an ISA and a pension, calculate the effect of compound growth or outline some of the considerations when approaching retirement.

Information that once required significant research can increasingly be accessed instantly.

That doesn’t make financial advisers redundant. It changes where their value lies.

Information isn’t the same as advice

Knowing something and knowing what to do are very different things.

A client might understand the advantages and disadvantages of investing more aggressively, but that doesn’t tell them how comfortable they will be when markets fall.

They might understand their pension options but still struggle to decide when they can afford to retire.

They might have a perfectly rational financial plan and abandon it the moment circumstances change.

Good financial advice involves understanding the individual behind the numbers: their objectives, concerns, family, behaviour, priorities and attitude towards uncertainty.

AI can provide information. An adviser provides context, judgement and accountability.

The advantage is human

As technology becomes better at answering technical questions, the human elements of advice become more important.

Clients don’t necessarily want more information. In many cases, they already have too much of it.

They need somebody who can listen, challenge assumptions, simplify choices and help them make decisions with confidence.

That relationship becomes particularly important during major life events.

Retirement, divorce, bereavement, inheritance, selling a business or helping children financially aren’t simply mathematical problems. They often involve competing priorities and emotionally difficult decisions.

The adviser who understands the client is operating with context that cannot be captured by a generic prompt.

AI can make good advisers better

There is another way to look at the question.

Instead of asking, “How do I compete with ChatGPT?”, perhaps advisers should ask:

“How can I use AI to become a better adviser?”

AI has the potential to remove some of the lower-value administrative and research burden surrounding advice.

It can help businesses organise information, prepare communications, analyse data, generate initial research and streamline internal processes.

Used appropriately, that creates more capacity for the work where advisers can add the greatest value: speaking to clients, understanding their circumstances and helping them make better decisions.

The firms that benefit most from AI may therefore not be those trying to replace people with technology. They may be those using technology to give their people more time to be human.

Clients will use AI whether advisers like it or not

There is also a practical reality.

Some clients will arrive at meetings having already asked ChatGPT.

They may use AI to research investments, pensions, tax questions or financial strategies before speaking to an adviser.

That shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a threat.

An informed client can lead to a better conversation. The adviser’s role becomes helping them distinguish useful information from information that is incomplete, inappropriate or lacking the context necessary for their circumstances.

Rather than being the client’s only source of information, the adviser can become the person they trust to make sense of it.

Trust becomes more valuable, not less

As the volume of AI-generated information increases, establishing what to trust may become harder.

A confident answer isn’t necessarily a correct answer. And even factually accurate information isn’t necessarily appropriate for a particular individual.

Financial decisions can have consequences lasting decades.

That creates an opportunity for advisers who can demonstrate expertise, communicate clearly and build genuine long-term relationships with their clients.

The competitive advantage isn’t simply knowing more facts than an AI system.

It’s being the person a client trusts when the answer matters.

The future of financial advice

AI will almost certainly change financial advice.

Some processes will become automated. Clients will have access to increasingly sophisticated financial tools. Tasks that previously consumed hours may eventually take minutes.

But that doesn’t necessarily reduce the value of advice. It changes the definition of valuable advice.

The adviser of the future may spend less time being an information provider and more time being a strategist, sounding board, coach and trusted decision-making partner.

So, how do you compete with ChatGPT?

Perhaps you don’t.

Let technology provide the information. Make sure you provide the value that information alone cannot.