AI is changing the way people seek financial advice.
But it is not replacing the need for human judgement.
At CFTE’s UK–Singapore Exchange, Michael Davies from Nextvestment opened with a striking insight: six in ten clients now go to AI before speaking to a financial advisor.
This shift has important implications for financial institutions, advisors, and the future of client relationships. AI is not only changing how advice is delivered. It is changing how clients prepare, what they expect, and when they choose to engage with a human expert.
The Shift in Client Behaviour
Clients are increasingly forming opinions before they speak to an advisor.
They are using AI tools to ask questions, explore options, compare products, and build an initial understanding of their financial situation. By the time they engage with a financial advisor, they may already have a point of view.
In some cases, they may not speak to an advisor at all.
This creates a new challenge for financial institutions. If clients begin their journey with AI tools outside the institution, the institution risks losing the relationship before the advisory conversation even begins.
The issue is no longer only whether advisors can provide high-quality advice. It is whether institutions can remain relevant earlier in the client journey.
The Scalability Problem in Financial Advice
Traditional advisory models face a clear scalability challenge.
One advisor may be responsible for hundreds of clients. This makes it difficult to offer consistent, personalised, and timely support to everyone.
Clients notice this.
Those who receive less attention may feel underserved, especially if they are lower on the priority list. The result is uneven service quality and missed opportunities to build stronger relationships.
This is where AI can create value.
Not by replacing advisors, but by helping them understand clients better, respond more proactively, and deliver more personalised support at scale.
AI as an Intelligence Layer
Nextvestment’s approach is not to replace human advisors.
It is to augment them.
The role of AI is to act as an intelligence layer that captures interactions, analyses client behaviour, and identifies signals that may otherwise be missed.
This can include understanding how clients engage with information, what topics they return to, what questions they ask, and what their behaviour may indicate.
For example, AI may help distinguish between a client showing curiosity and a client showing anxiety. These are very different signals. One may suggest interest in exploring new opportunities. The other may require reassurance, guidance, and a more human conversation.
This kind of intelligence can help advisors prioritise, personalise, and strengthen their engagement with clients.
Redefining the Role of AI in Advice
Michael’s key message was clear: AI should not replace human judgement. It should enhance it.
AI is well suited to handling data, context, patterns, and signals. It can process large volumes of information quickly and help surface insights that support better decision-making.
But financial advice is not only a data problem.
It often involves life decisions, personal goals, family circumstances, uncertainty, trust, and emotion. These are areas where human judgement remains essential.
Clients may use AI to gather information. But when it comes to making important financial decisions, they still need confidence, context, and a trusted relationship.
The Future of Financial Advice Is Hybrid
The future of financial advice will not be fully automated.
It will be hybrid.
AI can support advisors by improving intelligence, personalisation, and responsiveness. Human advisors can focus on judgement, empathy, relationships, and trust.
This combination has the potential to make financial advice more scalable without making it less human.
For institutions, the opportunity is to use AI to strengthen the advisor-client relationship, not weaken it. The goal should be to ensure that advisors have better context, clients receive better support, and advice becomes more timely, relevant, and personalised.
The Takeaway
AI is changing financial advice, but it is not replacing it.
Michael Davies’ message at CFTE’s UK–Singapore Exchange was clear: the future of advice lies in combining AI intelligence with human judgement.
AI can handle data, context, and behavioural signals.
Humans remain essential for life decisions, relationships, and trust.
The real question is no longer only what AI can do.
It is what AI should not do.
