Ammonite-ai has officially launched its AI-powered Planbot, proven in a pilot with over 100 users to slash report writing times for advice firms.
With report and review writing a typical bottleneck in the advice process, ammonite-ai is significantly improving productivity in the back office. It has already been proven to reduce the time to deliver suitability reports and annual reviews to clients by at least half, helping to reduce operational backlogs, and increasing firms’ speed of service to clients.
Planbot aligns with the firm’s own way of working, using its preferred templates and workflow processes, making it intuitive and easy to deploy. It speeds up pre-planning packs that can be sent out to clients ahead of the client meeting, recording, transcribing and actioning of client meeting notes, through to the all-important paraplanning and report writing.
Planbot is the culmination of many years’ experience and development by two previously Chartered advisers who were on a mission to “crack the toughest nut”. Planbot conveys an appreciation of the role of report writer and an understanding that each firm has its own unique style and identity.
Planbot turns a firm’s manual templates into AI-powered documents that can be completed in seconds by uploading transcripts, pdfs, excel, CSV and word docs, enabling faster, more consistent production of client-facing reports. This is coalface proven to have real-time operational benefits within advice firms.
The software most importantly gives the advice firm complete control, over the look, tone and voice of the documents, able to edit the order, wording, structure and formatting, and then export the documents in the brand and style of the firm, not a generic AI output.
Using Planbot, advice firms like Simpson Wood have successfully reduced suitability report/annual review turnaround times. Having used Planbot to tackle their annual review backlog, Alexandra Curtis, Head of Client Servicing at Simpson Wood said: “Planbot has really reduced our turnaround times. We can now get reports back to clients much sooner. It’s helped us work through a backlog far quicker, and for the first time we can see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Co-founders Rob Harradine and Caroline Duff, have combined 30 plus years’ experience of working in wealth management and advice firms, and previously built and sold their own advice business. They are more than aware of the frustrations experienced by advisers and paraplanners in delivering suitability reports and annual reviews to clients within a decent time frame, as well as in adopting new systems into a business.
“The practical application of our Planbot AI tool has seen users more than halve the time it takes to create firms’ suitability reports,” says Harradine, “and we built Planbot to work in the way that advice firms operate now, rather than trying to shoehorn them into a tech company’s way of working.”
Caroline Duff says: “In my time, I have written thousands of suitability reports and annual reviews, which meant I had practical insight into how we could build Planbot to best help paraplanners improve their report writing capabilities, while making it as easy as possible for them to adapt to the technology.
“We see the biggest opportunity for AI in paraplanning is in reducing the time spent drafting and reworking advice reports, rather than replacing technical judgement. By speeding up report drafting and editing, AI allows paraplanners to spend more time on analysis, quality control, and adviser collaboration, rather than repetitive writing and formatting. Used this way, AI improves efficiency and consistency while keeping responsibility firmly with the paraplanner and adviser.
“The results speak for themselves, which is why we are excited to now fully launch ammonite-ai and Planbot into the advice market.”
Harradine added: “AI is moving fast and its capabilities are becoming clearer to advisers and paraplanners. We feel it’s essential that they have control of the AI, with an intuitive system that allows for a high degree of customisation.
“There is no question that both advisers and paraplanners are going to win hours back each week with tools like Planbot AI. From time spent on tasks like report drafting, meeting prep and sifting through documents for information, there are clear wins to be had here.”
Co-founders Rob Harradine and Caroline Duff were recently interviewed for a Professional Paraplanner Technology Insight webinar, with Sian Wood, Compliance and Operations Director of Simpson Wood, and Alexandra Curtis, Head of Client Servicing at Simpson Wood, a financial advice firm based in Huddersfield. You can watch it here.
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