How do we pivot AI to help us as paraplanners? Jo Campbell, Chief Operating Officer at Verve shows us that AI isn’t our enemy – that so much good can come to make our lives easier and, improve client outcomes.
The onslaught of AI is unavoidable at the minute. It’s literally everywhere. We haven’t seen such a boom in a technological advance since we put heels on the bottom of trainers so kids could find a faster way to hurt themselves.
The increased adoption is positively correlated with the amount of firms offering AI and solutions in various areas, mostly meeting notes, file checking and suitability reports.
The choice of options can be dizzying and complex and we’re already seeing the first wave of people changing AI providers. There is still a lot of movement in that market, due in part to there being new firms all of the time and few that can meet all of a firm’s holistic needs. While the output does appear to be compliant, an AI model can’t necessarily identify the nuanced requirements that satisfy Consumer Duty.
Which is why I vehemently deny the other positive correlation I’m seeing, which is ironically negative: AI will replace the paraplanner.
A suitability report does not a paraplanner make.
Everyone reading this will, I’m sure, agree, in that it is of course a huge part of the role, but the creation of the document isn’t the problem. It’s how you interpret the information given, to go into the report and how that report is received and understood by the client. I’m a fan of saying a report is not about what’s written, but what is read.
The best AI notes converted into a report are not a replacement for the interpreter that a paraplanner has become; reading between the lines is often more important than reading what’s on them. Identifying unstated vulnerabilities, providing alternative investment and product options and being able to digest all of the information from numerous meetings and regurgitating it into a format that a client can understand all are frustratingly just beyond the capabilities of the current AI models that I’ve seen and tested.
Though with the speed of the advancement I expect it’s coming. An expert in behavioural finance recently told me that he thinks his AI model can replicate empathy, which I’m sceptical about, but not so sceptical as to not believe it’s on the horizon.
That said, how do we pivot this technology to help us, as paraplanners?
Keep your tech friends close, but keep your AI enemies closer.
I’ve done a huge amount of testing, due diligence and research into the various models and concluded that there are a few areas where AI can really help:
- Document checking. Have it give your report and written literature a once over. Ask it to check the readability score and make suggestions for making it more digestible for an average UK client.
- Search the web for product solutions. I did this quite successfully recently with PMI research (a notoriously manual process usually).
- Have it summarise a lengthy policy or trust document so you don’t need to spend hours reading it.
- Use it to pull data from an investment portfolio and create graphs/charts as a summary or performance and asset allocation.
- Ask it to prioritise your workload and create a to-do list or a timeline for action to save you time and stop some of the potential Sunday night dread.
If you’re new to it, all of these can be done with your off the shelf AI, without having to invest in a specifically finance model yet. I advise to err on the side of caution with all of the above, however. AI output is only as good as the data it’s fed, and we all know how much trash there is out there on the internet about finance and its capabilities. I’ve seen it get tax, trusts and safeguarded benefits very wrong and so as yet, I would not rely on it 100%. Nothing can replace that human brain (and all those hours we spent in exams) just yet.
To summarise, this article was written old-school without the benefit of AI (though it can be used for that too). I’m asking my esteemed colleagues in the paraplanning profession to not worry, paraplanners are and always will be invaluable.
But if there’s a way we can take this tech and make our lives easier and improve the client outcome, it’s really not our enemy.
Main image: boliviainteligente-DEci5GH0r0k-unsplash
