The number of advice professionals using AI has jumped significantly over the past 12 months, says Dynamic Planner.
According to Dynamic Planner’s Advice 26 report, the number of advice professionals already using AI has jumped by 46% since 2025, with two in five (41%) now using the technology.
Larger firms are most likely to be using AI, while mid-sized firms are most likely to be in the investigation phase. Larger firms also see data, the foundation on which AI depends, as more essential.
Importantly, the ‘do not plan to use’ group, which stood at 2% in 2025, no longer exists, with one in seven (14%) waiting for their existing technology provider to embed AI and 99% of the industry believing AI will be positive.
However, getting it right is still viewed as the biggest tech challenge by the advice industry, overtaking data flow and integrations which was rated the biggest challenge in 2025.
Dynamic Planner said this year’s Advice 26 also saw the emergence of chatbot/AI agent as a new way to service clients, with one in 10 already using this method. However, digital messaging via an app or portal remains the most popular way to service clients, with 67% using this method, up from 50% last year.
The findings also revealed a jump in the average number of clients served per adviser from 118 in 2025 to 134 in 2026.
Rory McLaren, chief technology officer at Dynamic Planner, said: “Last week the FCA called out agentic AI as one of the big scaling opportunities. And of all the findings from Advice 26, the one that is most profoundly interesting and indicative of this, is that one in 10 firms are already servicing clients via chatbot or AI agent. With AI growth showing itself to be exponential, firms wanting the ability to scale, and the manner in which the industry is now embracing it, 2026 will be the year of Agentic AI.”
Looking ahead, McLaren said: “AI as a technology is moving on at such a pace, we would need a crystal ball to understand what we will ask of the industry on AI in Advice 27. The one thing for certain is that governance of AI will be top of the list. For the more autonomous the AI, the more the governance matters. Advice professionals viewed ‘getting it right’ as one of the biggest tech challenges when it comes to adopting AI. Advice-grade AI has to be the goal.”
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