AI to replace IFAs?

[Penny Whistle]

I have never been impressed by the service offered by the few IFAs who I have spoken to in the past. They seem more interested in pushing their favoured products than considering my specific concerns. Maybe I have not chosen wisely.

Now I see ...

Reuters said:

HSBC .. is planning sweeping job cuts across its ​UK wealth management business, including a sharp reduction in financial ‌advisers and specialist staff, as part of a broader push to integrate AI, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Should I just cut out the middle man and build a new relationship with an AI "adviser" ?

[LooneyTunes]

That should depend on how confident you feel in your ability to understand and validate any AI output.

The latest frontier AI models are great but they need accurate instruction, can still make assumptions that aren’t necessarily valid in every case, and can sound plausible even if off target.

That said, I actively use AI to evaluate financial opportunities - specific companies, markets, and more generally to review pension platforms. None of this is stuff I couldn’t do myself but AI allows me to speed up the process.

Would I use something marketed as an AI product for investment management without being able to get granular insight about what it was doing and the being able to challenge the basis of its decisions and recommendations? Nope.

[Courser]

The chances of me actively letting Ai make decisions on my money are nil.

[Frimley111R]

You could but you need to understand it is a like having a junior advisor. You need to be very specific and never assume anything it says (however you can ask it questions to check).

All IFAs do is find out what you need and match it to the most suitable products.

Edited by Frimley111R on Thursday 8th October 10:20

[dingg]

Yes ,one of the services that will definitely get a good kicking from AI .

Great imo

[Derek Chevalier]

Penny Whistle said:

Maybe I have not chosen wisely.

Potentially. Might be worth trying here.

https://www.cisi.org/cisiweb2/wayfinder/about-wayf...

[Jackals]

Might be worth remembering if you act on the financial advice produced from AI and it turns out it was the wrong advice, you're not able to either raise a formal complaint or potentially go to the FOS.

[YouWhatAgain]

dingg said:

Yes ,one of the services that will definitely get a good kicking from AI .

Great imo

Good luck with that one, the only useful information I got from IA about my finances was “go talk to an IFA”

[Penny Whistle]

Frimley111R said:

All IFAs do is find out what you need and match it to the most suitable products.

... from the providers with whom they have an existing relationship (in my experience).

[JoshSm]

Penny Whistle said:

They seem more interested in pushing their favoured products than considering my specific concerns.

What do you think an AI is going to do? You'd have to ask very carefully to get around the statistical bias inherent in the model - and that's assuming it wasn't deliberately set to lean in certain directions.

And then try to make sure the output was stable and consistent when there's usually randomness in the mix, so the same query will give different answers at different times, maybe subtly different, maybe broadly so.

And that's assuming you have much idea of what query to make in the first place.

Humans are imperfect but so are the machines.

[dingg]

YouWhatAgain said:

dingg said:

Yes ,one of the services that will definitely get a good kicking from AI .

Great imo

Good luck with that one, the only useful information I got from IA about my finances was go talk to an IFA

My circumstances are most likely different to yours.

I find it an easy journey DIY.

I'm in a tax free pension drawdown environment that my employers nominated fa didn't even know could possibly exist, in his opinion it couldn't.

Yet here I am ,pulling a steady annual 6 figure sum from my sipp tax free.

[Terminator X]

Penny Whistle said:

I have never been impressed by the service offered by the few IFAs who I have spoken to in the past. They seem more interested in pushing their favoured products than considering my specific concerns. Maybe I have not chosen wisely.

Now I see ...

Reuters said:

HSBC .. is planning sweeping job cuts across its ?UK wealth management business, including a sharp reduction in financial ?advisers and specialist staff, as part of a broader push to integrate AI, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Should I just cut out the middle man and build a new relationship with an AI "adviser" ?

Surely your AI Agent is already the man to turn to. It appears that they know everything, 30 years of experience etc now counts for nothing.

TX.

[Collectingbrass]

I'd sooner let a lady of negotiable virtue tell me what horses to back at Aintree, the odds of a return will be better as will the view.

[simon800]

YouWhatAgain said:

Good luck with that one, the only useful information I got from IA about my finances was go talk to an IFA

What did you ask it?

[Nicetobenice]

Courser said:

The chances of me actively letting Ai make decisions on my money are nil.

Neither the IFA nor AI make the decision - that's down to you.

It's your responsibility to weigh up the quality of the advice you are being given.

[YouWhatAgain]

simon800 said:

YouWhatAgain said:

Good luck with that one, the only useful information I got from IA about my finances was go talk to an IFA

What did you ask it?

I gave it all the details of all my assets and asked it what was the most tax efficient way of extracting my desired income for my retirement.

[simon800]

YouWhatAgain said:

I gave it all the details of all my assets and asked it what was the most tax efficient way of extracting my desired income for my retirement.

Try running what you ask it through promptcowboy.ai and give it another go - you may get a pleasant surprise

[Frimley111R]

simon800 said:

promptcowboy.ai

That's an interesting tool, trying it now...

[Abtj]

Courser said:

The chances of me actively letting Ai make decisions on my money are nil.

What ifa have you found that makes decisions on your money?

[butchstewie]

I love threads like this.

No context of what models what prompts what information no nothing just "yeah it's great" or "yeah it's useless" when for all anyone knows the most basic free model possible has been fed a pile of ste.