What changes
Most adviser websites offer much the same things: articles, a newsletter and a pension or retirement calculator. Clients can now get all of that, in more tailored form, from a general AI assistant for free. The new model firm offers something those assistants can’t: tools that know the client, carry the firm’s name and connect back to the adviser.
That might be an assistant that answers questions about the client’s own plan and passes to an adviser when a question needs advice. It might be a short video that explains a client’s review in plain language. Or it might be a household hub that holds the family’s financial documents and shows what’s missing. The point is ownership. The firm decides what the tool says, what data it holds and when it hands over to a person, rather than sending clients to someone else’s product.
Why it matters now
Clients are already asking AI assistants about their money. If the only place they can ask about their own plan is a general tool, the firm drops out of the conversation between reviews. A tool under your own name keeps you in it, and it shows the firm which households need attention next.
Anything client-facing sits under the Consumer Duty. You need to be confident the tool supports client understanding, is clear about where guidance ends and advice begins, and hands over to a person at the right moment. That’s easier to show when you control how the tool works.
Case study: Your Family Financial Hub
Your Family Financial Hub (YFFH) is a white-label hub for adviser firms. The firm gives each client household its own hub. Documents the family adds are read into records, and each record keeps the sentence it came from, so anyone can see where a date or figure originated. The family sees what’s there and what’s missing, such as no will, no lasting power of attorney or no pension beneficiary, and can share chosen categories with its solicitor or accountant.
The firm sees which households need it next, and nothing is confirmed until the firm confirms it. Each firm has its own web address, sign-in page, logo and assistant name, so clients see the firm throughout. YFFH is built by Independent Check, which runs 8MDs.
Checklist
- Pick one client problem your current website doesn’t solve, such as knowing what a household holds and what’s missing, and build the first tool around it.
- Decide whether to build, white-label or partner for each tool, and check where client data is stored, who can see it and how you would move it if you changed supplier.
- Write the handover rules: which questions the assistant answers, which it passes to an adviser, and how quickly an adviser responds.
- Pilot with 20 to 50 households you see regularly, and ask them at their next meeting what they used and what they ignored.
- Record a short video answering your most common review question and send it to clients before the next round of meetings.
Illustrative example
A firm with 250 client households offers a household hub to 40 of them as a pilot. Over the first three months, the families add wills, pension statements and policy documents. The hub shows that 14 of the 40 households have no lasting power of attorney and 9 have pension beneficiary nominations more than five years old.
The firm confirms each finding against the documents, then books short calls with those households. With the families’ agreement, it shares the relevant categories with their solicitors. The pilot produces 23 follow-up actions, and the firm now plans to offer the hub to every household at its next review.
Common mistakes
- Launching a generic chatbot on the website. A tool that answers general questions adds little that clients can’t get elsewhere. Start with the client’s own information.
- Letting the tool drift into advice. Set clear limits and a fast handover to a person, and test both with real questions before launch.
- Building everything at once. One tool that households use regularly is worth more than several that sit idle on the website.
Coaching your clients
A hub or assistant is also a practical way to show clients how to use AI well in their own finances. Walk them through it at the next review: what it reads, how it shows its sources and why a person confirms the result. Clients who have seen a checked, sourced tool in action are better placed to judge the general AI tools they already use, and to spot when an answer about their tax or pension needs a professional to confirm it.