AI chatbot financial advice is changing the texture of client meetings in ways that have received little attention: not by replacing advisers, but by inserting a permanent, argumentative third party into the relationship. An adviser writing on the Boring Money website described the experience with some candour. Several clients had arrived with information gathered from ChatGPT, close to accusing him of giving incorrect guidance. He would spend time correcting the errors, only for the client to feed his corrections back into the chatbot and return with a fresh round of questions.
‘Recently this has been sapping the life out of me,’ the adviser said. He joked that he had reached the point of considering the ‘it’s me or ChatGPT’ ultimatum.
How Widespread Is AI Use Among Advised Clients?
The anecdote is arresting, but the data behind it is what advisers should study. Boring Money’s 2026 Advised Investor Report found that 9% of advised clients regularly use AI to inform financial decisions. That figure climbs sharply with wealth: among clients with between £500,000 and £1m in investable assets, 34% have used AI for financial support, rising to 44% for those with more than £1m. These are not marginal users experimenting out of curiosity. They are precisely the clients whose portfolios generate the bulk of many advisory firms’ revenue.
The same report found that 63% of advised clients would be comfortable using AI to monitor investments, identify tax opportunities or highlight portfolio risks. Holly Mackay, chief executive of Boring Money, draws a distinction between information and advice. AI is creating ‘more blue sky in between pure information and recommendation’, she says. Clients use it to find facts and figures while still looking to trusted people for validation and opinion.
AI Chatbot Financial Advice Changes the Adviser’s Job Description
Anthony Carty, managing director at Clifton Wealth Management, whose firm has embraced AI as part of its own advice process, takes a measured view. ‘I’m a little bit cautious when I hear people say it will never affect financial planning in the sense that clients will always want the human touch,’ he says. ‘I think personally that’s a punchy line. I don’t wholly subscribe to that.’ Carty believes advisers need to understand how clients are using AI and raise it during discovery, onboarding and throughout the client relationship. Knowing a client routinely checks advice through ChatGPT should inform how an adviser explains decisions and anticipates misunderstandings.
For the wealth-management reader thinking about their own portfolio, the regulatory dimension is worth noting. A client receiving advice from an authorised firm has established routes through which to complain and, depending on circumstances, seek redress if that advice causes financial loss. A client relying solely on a chatbot holds no equivalent protection. That asymmetry is not a selling point advisers should be shy about stating.
The Financial Conduct Authority has signalled that AI will transform financial advice by 2030. The more immediate pressure is not technological displacement. It is the expectation, now taking hold among wealthier clients in particular, that an adviser must do more than relay facts that a chatbot can supply in seconds. Over a five-to-ten-year horizon, the advisers best positioned will be those who can articulate clearly what accountability, personalised judgement and regulated recourse are worth, and price accordingly.
