Dynamic Planner is launching an agentic AI upgrade to its Digital Advice Platform, designed to unlock further capacity for firms to serve more clients, writes Rob Kingsbury.
The company said fragmented data, disconnected systems and administration often limited how many clients each adviser can serve.
But with the launch, the belief that a single adviser could only handle around 100 clients before quality of service was lost was now no longer the case, according Dynamic Planner CEO Ben Goss, who hailed the upgrade as the company’s most significant in a number of years.
A 19 month study of 659 mid-market advice firms using Dynamic Planner’s upgraded end-to-end platform – pre agent AI – showed that the highest-performing firms, dubbed ‘Transformers’ by Dynamic Planner, could increase average clients served per adviser by 41%, from 131 to 185, while time spent on the platform increased by only around 3% as a result of automation.
The top quartile firms pushed that to 201 clients per adviser. It also saw firms that typically served clients with average assets of £400k now able to profitably serve clients with £220k of assets.
Goss said: “These findings highlight what the Transformers are already achieving with Dynamic Planner’s existing technology, before the full impact of agentic AI. The agentic upgrade builds on this progress and is designed to unlock further capacity for firms to serve more clients.
He added: “Advice is difficult to access because it is difficult to deliver at scale. Applying agentic AI to this foundation enables firms to remove even more of the friction which holds them back and to create more adviser capacity at scale. That is what our agentic upgrade is all about.”
Underlying the process is the fundamental need for accurate, normalised data, Goss emphasised. Normalising data received from platforms, back offices, asset managers etc, meant that there was consistent input to the system – “so apples are apples and a pound is a pound throughout.”
From the paraplanning perspective, the platform gathers client, adviser and provider input, gives paraplanners a daily dashboard of cases and updates, and suitability reports can be automated and delivered in as little as 4 minutes.
The streamlined platform sees a new client, as an example, complete the initial request form and then guided through responses to financial advice if deemed appropriate.
The system walks them through the fact find and risk profiling and additional data can be input and open banking used to provide a fuller picture of the clients assets, needs and goals. This moves to a meeting with an adviser, the first human interaction, with the option for the client to choose the adviser they would like to handle their case.
The system goes out to collect relevant data, initiates LoAs etc, and delivers the information from the data gathering and the client meeting – recorded and transcribed – to a dashboard accessible by the paraplanner.
When the paraplanner comes to work in the morning the system will have identified the paraplanner’s workload and the priority cases and added any additional information such as documents that might have come in overnight.
The paraplanner can go through the information and recommendations received to check the details and see what additional info may be required. When satisfied they have everything needed they can progress to generating a suitability report, which can be formatted to the firm’s own template.
The system will then bring in the relevant information and can deliver a report in as little as 4 minutes. A report companion capability can be used to check against compliance and regulatory frameworks.
The report will have any further areas for review highlighted and the report can be checked and amended by the paraplanner before the client-ready report is sent to the client. The advice firm retains the control and exercises professional judgement on each case. More complex cases will need greater adviser and paraplanner input.
Ian McKenna CEO and founder of the Financial Technology Research Centre (FTRC) said the industry had reached the “time for serious decisions” to be made with regard to the implementation of AI and how it is being used.
He emphasised the need for the normalised data referenced by Dynamic Planner if the automation and use of agents was to truly work for advice firms. “It’s a cliche but rubbish in rubbish out is what firms will get,” he said. The danger of inaccurate data was that AI could amplify the inaccuracies through into the recommendations.
Governance also was raised as an important issue and concern, notably that in the rush of the industry to adopt AI for its benefits there was the danger it was being overlooked.
McKenna added: “The focus on governance and stewardship of AI, with particular attention to ensuring data is kept in the right jurisdictions, is a great example of the sort of discipline the industry needs in deploying such tools. Dynamic Planner already hold both ISO 27001 and ISO/IEC 42001 certifications. These are key standards all industry firms should aspire to achieve. Firms need to work with a partner that has governance built in.”
The upgrade to Dynamic Planner is being rolled out in three stages from 2 November with the suitability report element coming in Q1 2027.
Access to the agentic AI capability will be through a new licence at £55 per user per month up to 135 clients per adviser.
McKenna added: “Overall, Dynamic Planner have put forward a compelling proposition showing the commercial and operational benefits of their technology, while at the same time adding powerful new functionality and giving clear guidance on their future direction. Dynamic Planner have set a high bar that market propositions can be measured against.”
Ben Goss concluded: “Our vision is a world where everyone can access the financial advice they need and firms can service them profitably. Today marks one of the most significant evolutions of Dynamic Planner since its inception, with the agentic AI upgrade of our Digital Advice Platform. We’re providing firms with the technology they need to transform how they operate today, while laying the foundations for an entirely new way of delivering advice tomorrow.”
Main image: technology, AI, robynne-o-HOrhCnQsxnQ-unsplash
