Money advice is one of the things many people need most, and yet it’s one of the things they’re least likely to get. In the UK, only 9% of people access advice with their money each year. That number has barely moved in several years.
The reasons are complex, but at their heart they come down to two things: cost and perception. Too many people assume financial advice is only for the wealthy. At the same time, it’s becoming increasingly expensive to provide. Regulations rightly designed to protect customers have added extra layers of paperwork and process. Advisers end up spending hours taking notes, chasing documents, or formatting reports. This is time that could have been spent sitting with families, listening and guiding.
It’s a bit like asking a doctor to spend three quarters of their day filling out forms rather than seeing patients. No wonder so many advice firms have ended up only serving people with £200,000 or more in assets. The rest are effectively shut out.
I think technology, and in particular AI, will help change this. Not by replacing advisers, but by liberating them from a growing to-do list of administrative tasks.
This year we partnered with two AI pioneers, Aveni and Ani Tech, to tackle the burden of administration head-on. With Ani Tech, we’ve introduced a team of AI helpers who now handle the repetitive jobs that used to eat up adviser time.
Working quietly in the background, the helpers are taking on time-consuming but essential processes – from contacting third-party providers to retrieving documents. And staff have given them playful internal names to help distinguish their roles: “Hermione” manages correspondence, “Ron” handles retrieval and “Harry” prepares client reports.
Tasks like these used to take an average of 26 hours for our advisers whenever a new client joined us. Today, those same tasks take just six hours. Our advisers can instead spend that reclaimed time face-to-face with customers, having the conversations that build trust and shape futures.
Interestingly, these digital assistants were developed using agentic AI, which is emerging as a pioneer in streamlining admin for businesses. For example, Ani Tech’s founder Samantha McBride told us that she attended a recent AI conference where only two companies in the room had agentic AI in production. But almost everyone agreed that in five years there will be more agent-to-agent communication in the world than human-to-human.
With Aveni, we’re using AI to monitor and capture every client conversation in real time. Instead of frantically scribbling notes, our coaches and advisers can be fully present in the room, knowing the system will generate suitability reports, ensure compliance, and highlight anything that needs attention.
Aveni Detect is now embedded into daily use by around 60 colleagues across the coaching and financial advice teams, including mortgage advisers. Every call is now transcribed and reviewed – a step up from the 10-15% that could previously be checked through human checking alone. The platform’s fast transcription and note-taking features have also halved the time spent reviewing calls.
For me, this is where AI is most powerful. Not as a cost-cutter or a replacement, but as an enabler of humanity. It takes away the noise, so advisers can do what they do best: listen, understand, empathise, and guide.
And that’s something technology can’t replicate. An algorithm can calculate a mortgage repayment schedule, but it can’t look a young couple in the eye as they nervously wonder if they’ll ever be able to afford a home. AI can flag when a customer might be financially vulnerable, but it can’t provide the reassurance of someone saying: “You’re not alone. Let’s work through this together.”
We also know people are far more likely to take action with their money when supported by a human. Take investing for the first time: it can feel like stepping into a foreign land full of jargon and risk. Most people need a trusted voice reassuring them they’re not about to make a mistake. That’s why robo-advisers convert only 1% of users, while 30% of those who create a holistic plan guided by their human coach over a call at Octopus Money take meaningful action.
We’re of course now thinking about new ways AI might be able to support across other areas across the business – from helping with training purposes or maintaining knowledge and skills, and many more.
The interesting question is what this shift allows us to do next. If we can free up advisers’ time, if we can expand the pool of people they’re able to serve, then we can start to make financial advice truly inclusive. The advice gap is not inevitable, it’s the result of an outdated model.
The future of money advice isn’t about robots replacing advisers. It’s about advisers finally being able to spend their time where it matters most: with people. That’s how we’ll open up money advice to more families, not just the wealthiest few.
