In the following article, Alan Gurung, CEO of AdvisoryAI, argues that true transformation in financial advice will come not from speeding up existing workflows, but from rethinking how those workflows are designed. By treating AI as a trainable intelligence rather than merely an efficiency tool, firms can move beyond incremental improvements and unlock capabilities that were previously impossible. Alan examines where the industry stands today, the phases of AI adoption, and what it will take to move from efficiency to insight-driven transformation.
AI has transformed how advisers work day to day at a pace the industry hasn’t seen before. Transcription, drafting, pulling client data together. The efficiency gains are real, and they’re already here.
That said, the underlying model of how advice gets delivered hasn’t shifted. We’re operating with faster horses, not faster cars.
By transformation, I mean AI doing things that weren’t possible before. Speeding up existing work is something else: it’s the necessary precursor. Real transformation will arrive when firms stop bolting AI onto old workflows and start orchestrating across the silos that define how advice firms work today. That shift starts by treating AI as a trainable intelligence rather than another efficiency tool.
The real AI boom in advice hasn’t started yet. And most people in our industry are underestimating both how profound it will be and how soon it’s coming. The window is short: firms that haven’t started teaching their AI in the next 18 months will spend years catching up to the ones who did.
Where the Industry Actually Is Today
When I look at how advice gets delivered right now, the meetings, the reports, the compliance processes, not much has fundamentally changed. Most firms are using AI for isolated tasks. A transcription here. A draft paragraph there. Maybe some help with client emails.
Across the 400+ firms and 2,000+ advisers I’ve spoken with, I’ve come to see three approaches taking shape.
The integrators are the furthest forward. They mandate AI use across the firm, set up bespoke templates so reports come out ready for review, and refine constantly based on adviser feedback. They’re building processes on top of AI rather than the other way around. They’re pushing AI to the ceiling of what phase two can do, but it’s still phase two.
The cautious testers are doing the prep work without committing yet. They’ve started with simpler tasks like note-taking, they’re constantly evaluating safety, and they hold back from the harder workflows like suitability reports because compliance and Consumer Duty fears feel too real. At the same time, they’re re-mapping workflows, redesigning reports, and re-training advisers, knowing they’ll need to commit when the moment is right.
The hold-outs trust AI the least. They use existing client work as the reason to delay any decision. After years of steady revenue, current methods feel like home and changing them feels like an existential risk.
None of these three are doing a transformation. They’re all in some flavour of phase two.
That phrasing matters because every major technology shift follows the same three phases. First comes the breakthrough, the thing that captures everyone’s attention. Then comes a period where people bolt the new technology onto existing ways of working. Then comes the actual transformation, when the technology doesn’t just augment the old model but fundamentally reshapes it.
The internet didn’t transform retail when shops built websites. It transformed retail when Amazon rebuilt the entire model around what the internet made possible.
AI in advice is currently in phase two. We’re bolting AI onto existing processes. Transcription for meetings. Drafting help for suitability reports. It’s useful. It saves time. But the underlying model of how advice gets delivered has barely shifted.
Phase three is coming. And it looks completely different.
Picture knowing a client’s birthday before they do. Or seeing which clients are likely to have surplus cash to invest in the coming months, before they ask you. That is the kind of insight phase three makes possible. Phase two cannot get there.
What’s Missing: Transformational Leaders
What we’re short of are transformational leaders. Firms that don’t just adopt AI to do existing work faster, but actively challenge their AI providers to build for outcomes that look beyond efficiency altogether.
The question shifts. Not “how can AI speed this up?” but “what could AI enable that we couldn’t do before?” That kind of pressure transforms how advice gets delivered. It also forces AI providers to confront the same question internally: are they building real transformation, or incremental tooling dressed up as transformation?
Transformational leaders also break the silos that hold firms in phase two.
Right now, in a lot of firms, there’s a three-way standoff between functions. Financial advisers believe they can do the paraplanner’s job. Paraplanners believe they can do compliance. Compliance thinks they can become financial advisers. Each role guards its turf, and the firm pays the cost in friction and rework.
The winners won’t be those who protect their silo. They’ll be the ones who orchestrate across all three functions, using AI as a multiplier across every role.
For that to happen, advice firms need to look at AI as a trainable intelligence rather than another efficiency tool. Think of it like a new hire with extraordinary processing capacity but no institutional knowledge. One that needs to be taught over time, fed the right data, developed into something that can measurably augment decision-making. Eventually, it becomes a knowledge centre in its own right.
That’s where firms compound their advantage; that’s hard for competitors to replicate. Six months of teaching AI, which outputs you trust, where you need to edit, and how to configure it for your specific advice style, makes a material difference. A firm starting that process today would spend months catching up. And under Consumer Duty, that compounding shows up where it matters most: firms teaching AI for six months can demonstrate better client outcomes than those still on out-of-the-box tools.
What Phase Three Actually Looks Like
Real transformation in UK advice will come when AI makes advisers measurably better at advising, through insight, not just through speed.
Imagine if, in a safe and compliant way, AI could surface information that advisers would otherwise reach much more slowly. Which clients are likely to have surplus cash to invest in the coming months? Who has children approaching university age without education planning in place? Which clients lack estate planning or protection cover despite holding investment portfolios? Even something as simple as knowing a client’s birthday before they do.
This is information advisers could find on their own. The difference is speed and scale. Across a 200-client book, the cognitive load is the bottleneck, not the skill.
When AI carries that load, advisers get to be present at the right moments. Relationships deepen. Advisers become better at the thing they actually trained to do.
That is the transformation our industry should be chasing.
About AdvisoryAI
AdvisoryAI is the platform where financial advisory work happens. Through a unified interface, advisers, paraplanners, and compliance teams can access their entire client database through natural conversation – from preparing client reviews to surfacing compliance gaps across the book. The platform brings together meeting intelligence, suitability report generation, and compliance checking, helping firms increase client capacity while maintaining regulatory confidence.
