A survey of financial advisers has revealed that 72% of firms say it’s important to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their practices but 95% believe they lack the required skillsets to do so.
Conducted by financial advice technology provider, intelliflo, the adviser research also highlights that 94% of firms believe their advice journey isn’t as efficient as they would like, citing the top three reasons as internal inefficiency, lack of integrations along with time and resource challenges.
Coupling this with the regulatory pressures to provide accurate data to demonstrate the delivery of good outcomes, and it’s clear to see that there is a knowledge gap to bridge with financial advisers about how AI can transform the completion of burdensome tasks. For instance, the results revealed that on average, only 40% of surveyed firms’ workflows are currently fully digitalised, and 57% want to see more efficient and technology-based notetaking methods in place to take some of the admin load away from staff.
The potential of AI
With these results in mind, Kit Ruparel , Chief Technology Officer at Recordsure, explains how AI has the huge potential to improve efficiencies within financial services and support business growth:
The ability of AI to identify and date documents and conversations, break them down into summary themes and pull all relevant elements into a checklist can save firms significant time, especially during the file review process.
With all the relevant information in one place, teams can review a much larger percentage of files in the same amount of time, helping firms to scale while also delivering consistent advice and evidencing regulatory compliance and good consumer outcomes.
Understanding which AI tools can specifically improve advice systems and drive efficiencies in a firm is key. It’s about using the right tools for the right processes, as Kit explains:
There has been a lot of excitement around generative AI tools like ChatGPT being the solution to everything. The current cohort of generative AI solutions excel at creating new content, but in the advice profession, much of what’s required is examination and analysis of existing data. The regulated nature of advisers’ work means that often answers need to be factual and consistent, not creative.
While generative AI’s ability to generate human language makes it useful for tasks like chat-based research and generating creative content, actions that involve finding and presenting information stored in your internal data sources reliably and authoritatively, will be best served by AI tools based on more robust machine learning solutions
With the Consumer Duty now setting regulatory standards across the industry, the need to evidence compliance on an ongoing basis has never been more important. Implementing effective processes that drive efficiencies throughout the advice journey is vital in delivering the best possible outcomes for customers.
It’s time to move away from laborious, manual processes and free up your skilled team’s time to focus on the tasks where they’re needed most. Contact our RegTech experts today to discuss how Recordsure’s transformative AI can prove revolutionary for your firm.
