Digital advice platform, Dynamic Planner, has reported the launch of Advice 2025, a brand-new independent survey undertaken with over 400 advice professionals across the UK, consisting of 304 financial advisers, 52 decision makers and 50 paraplanners, all at the heart of the industry.
Conducted online by Research Without Barriers in the first quarter of this year, Dynamic Planner says that Advice 2025 provides comprehensive insight on the health of financial advice firms and the industry as it is today.
The key aim of Advice 2025 is to determine the answers to crucial questions: what is the mood among advice businesses? Can we get advice to more of those who need it? What role is technology playing? What might the future bring? It will also share Dynamic Planner’s perspective on the data from its unique vantage point, serving over 40% of the UK’s financial advisers and two million-plus UK investors.
Key highlights from Advice 2025, with more findings set to be released soon:
Client numbers predicted to rise
- 86% of advisers expect to increase their client base over the next 12 months, while 72% of advice firms are serving more clients than they were a year ago and this is a trend they expect to continue.
- Smaller firms are most likely, and the largest firms least likely, to have increased their client bases over the past year. Small firms may be playing catch up by unlocking some of the efficiencies their larger peers have already realised.
- Advisers and business decision makers are aligned on their assessment of growth over the past 12 months, but business decision makers are somewhat less likely to expect further increases.
Overwhelmingly positive support for AI industry wide
- 9 out of 10 advice professionals (94%) expect AI to be positive for the industry, with early use cases including meeting transcription and summarisation; document analysis and data extraction; and finally report generation and personalisation. Across demographics, roles and firm sizes, advice professionals are positive about the potential implications of AI for the industry.
- Positive sentiment around AI is driven by expectations that the technology will reduce the cost to serve and enable firms to service more clients. While those in their mid-careers are a little less convinced of the benefits, younger respondents who are building their client bases find the latter benefit particularly appealing.
- Although firms are keen to embrace AI, under a third are using it to date, with just over a half actively investigating and most of the remainder expecting it to become useful soon. The overall picture is of firms excited about the possibilities of AI but yet to capture the benefits. With the technology evolving so rapidly, this is one area where we could see significant changes by next year’s survey.
The power of data: 85% see data as essential or useful for their firm
- Advice firms capture vast quantities of data in the financial planning process. As they have invested in their technology, joined up their tech stacks and cleaned up that data, they have increasingly put themselves in a position to harness its power. With the information they need now at their fingertips, firms can build up more complete pictures of their businesses and identify trends, patterns, target markets and outliers.
- Today, this has implications for everything from regulatory reporting to forecasting shifts in client behaviour. In the coming months and years, artificial intelligence has the potential to make the data work even harder.
- Advice firms are widely aware of what their data can do for them, with close to half saying it is ‘essential’ and drives their decision making, while a further two-fifths find it useful in informing those decisions.
- A significant minority of business decision makers and those in large firms would like to make more use of their data – perhaps recognising the untapped potential.
Ben Goss, CEO, Dynamic Planner said: “We are pleased to launch Dynamic Planner’s Advice 2025, a new independent industry health check of the advice landscape, which will be undertaken on an annual basis.
“Our inaugural report has found a highly positive mood in an industry that is growing and thriving. In the advice sector, as in the world at large, change is a constant – but firms are rising to the challenges and facing the future with confidence.
“Standout themes from Advice 2025 include the rise of data and the transformative potential of artificial intelligence – clearly viewed by advice professionals as opportunities to be seized. The advent of both no doubt plays a part in supercharging the view that firms will increase their client base over the coming year.
“This industry has a vital role to play in driving investment, promoting financial resilience and improving retirement outcomes for an ageing population. Cost to serve has been a headwind, but firms now see the opportunity to grow and scale, bringing advice to more of those who need it. Advice 2025 tackles these topics head on, bringing together the collective experience of the industry. We look forward to sharing more findings in the coming weeks.”
To find out more, firms can register here: Advice 2025.
