How you can use AI to move up the food chain

More than 28 million adults now use artificial intelligence tools to help manage their money, according to new research from Lloyds Banking Group.

AI has become the go-to financial assistant for 56 per cent of UK adults, roughly 28.8 million people, who say they have used it in the past 12 months to manage their finances.

The overlap with what regulated financial advisers do is hard to miss.

More than a third of users say they turn to AI for investment research and recommendations. Almost four in ten use it for future financial planning, including pensions. In other words, AI is already wandering into territory advisers used to have largely to themselves.

The research suggests AI is helping people make smarter choices. Users estimate they have saved an average of £399 a year thanks to AI-generated insights. That is not life-changing money, but it is enough to feel useful.

Of course, this pales in comparison to the long-term financial wellbeing advisers deliver. Which raises an awkward question.

Either the people relying on AI are not in the right income or asset bracket for advisers, at least not yet. Or advisers have an opportunity to embrace AI and use it to differentiate what they offer.

AI may already be acting as a gateway service. It helps people get on top of debt, understand cash flow, and start saving. Once that is done, curiosity tends to turn towards investing, pensions and longer-term planning. That is usually where things start to get complicated.

Lloyds believes trust is the next frontier for AI adoption, and this is where the technology still falls short.

More than eight in ten AI users worry about data privacy. Eighty per cent are concerned about inaccurate or outdated information. Nearly seven in ten worry about a lack of personalisation based on their own circumstances.

In short, people like using AI. They just do not fully trust it.

This is where advisers already sit several rungs higher up the food chain.

As regulated professionals, advisers combine technical knowledge with accountability, judgement and context. Those are things AI still struggles to replicate. But ignoring the technology would be a mistake, particularly when more than a third of adults expect to increase their use of AI for money management over the next year.

The opportunity is not to compete with AI. It is to sit above it.

In practice, that might mean:

• Let AI handle the basics. Budgeting, cash flow and generic explanations are not where advisers add the most value.

• Focus on judgement-heavy decisions. Trade-offs, sequencing risk, tax strategy and behaviour still need a human.

• Use AI as a conversation starter. Clients arriving with AI-generated questions are engaged, not undermining your role.

• Address trust head-on. Explain where AI helps and where it should not be relied upon.

• Position advice as the upgrade. AI can inform decisions. Advisers help people live with them.

AI is already changing how people interact with their money. Advisers who recognise this early can move up the food chain, from information provider to trusted decision partner.

Those who ignore it may find themselves competing with something that does not charge fees, does not sleep, and is already in their clients’ pockets.

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