Why spending more time with clients remains your best defence against AI

Investors want guidance, reassurance and judgement from financial advisers. They’d also quite like somebody to blame when their investments fall.

Morningstar’s latest Investor Perspectives Retail Investor survey found that 89 per cent of UK investors working with an adviser consider them highly valuable in shaping their investment strategy. Reassuring stuff. The small print is that investors hold human advisers rather more accountable than AI when the results disappoint.

When losses follow AI-driven guidance, 51 per cent of investors accept responsibility themselves. When a human adviser is involved, only 37 per cent blame themselves; 28 per cent blame the adviser and 34 per cent hold both responsible. The machine supplies the answer. The qualified professional remains helpfully available for the complaint.

It’s an interesting arrangement. A chatbot can apparently offer investment guidance while carrying less responsibility for the outcome than someone with qualifications, insurance and a compliance file. Perhaps that’s what progress looks like.

Trusted, admired and mostly unused

Trust in generative AI for investment decisions is rising quickly. By 2026, 45 per cent of those surveyed reported high trust in the technology, up from 29 per cent in 2024. Low trust fell from 38 per cent in 2024 to 27 per cent in 2025.

That growing confidence hasn’t translated into widespread use. Some 68 per cent of investors still don’t rely on AI when making investment decisions, while only 2 per cent use it for most decisions. The pattern is consistent across age groups, so this isn’t simply older investors refusing to engage with anything more advanced than online banking.

People may admire what AI can do while remaining understandably reluctant to let it loose on their pension. Producing a convincing holiday itinerary is one thing. Reorganising 30 years of retirement savings is a slightly sterner test.

The human advantage comes with responsibility

For advisers, the real contest won’t be speed or access to information. AI has already won those. The human advantage lies in understanding what the client is trying to achieve, challenging ideas that don’t survive scrutiny and providing reassurance when markets become unpleasant.

A machine can explain volatility in seconds. It has rather less experience of stopping somebody from selling everything after three difficult days. It also can’t understand the client beyond the information entered, notice what hasn’t been said or apply judgement shaped by years of knowing the person and their family.

Clients expect advisers to take some responsibility, and the Morningstar figures make that painfully clear. It may feel unfair when an investor ignores advice, changes course halfway through or develops selective amnesia after a portfolio falls. Even so, accountability is part of what distinguishes professional advice from an instant answer produced by software that can’t be invited to an uncomfortable review meeting.

Advisers should therefore spend their time strengthening the relationship clients still value, rather than disappearing beneath suitability reports. The Timebank can handle the research, analysis and report writing behind the advice, leaving you more time for the judgement and reassurance that software hasn’t replaced.

AI may keep gaining trust. Advisers will retain the rather exclusive privilege of sharing responsibility.