A Financial Adviser Built AI That Replaced His Job for £149 a Month

How can financial advisers use AI to grow their business without hiring more staff?

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In this episode of Financial Planner Life, Sam Oakes sits down with Max Anderson, former financial planner and founder of Wealth Space, to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the day-to-day reality of running an advice firm.

Max built Wealth Space after experiencing the same challenge most advisers face today: capacity.

Advice firms are not short of demand. They are short of time.

Client meetings, suitability reports, compliance documentation, and administration create an operational bottleneck that stops firms from scaling.

In this conversation we explore how AI for financial advisers can reduce admin, improve productivity, and help firms grow without increasing headcount.

Max also shares how the technology was used in his own advice business and how it helped replace adviser capacity for £149 per month.

We also discuss:

• How AI is changing financial planning
 • Reducing suitability report time from 90 minutes to 20 minutes
• Using technology to increase adviser capacity
• Growing from 80 clients to 120 clients per adviser
• Why the biggest challenge in advice firms is operational workflow
• How AI tools can support paraplanners and advisers
• The future of advice technology and the Polaris junior adviser model

If you're curious about AI in financial planning, wealthtech, or how advice firms can scale more efficiently, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now to learn how artificial intelligence could reshape the future of financial advice.

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: AI And Advice

SPEAKER_01 0:01

And today on the Financial Planner Live podcast, I'm joined by Max Anderson, and he is a wealth tech entrepreneur. But before that, he was a financial planner. Now he is the owner of Wealth Space, an AI tech company in financial planning. And today he shares how you can use Wealth Tech to improve the productivity of your business, save you money, and even help you exit the industry with a much higher multiple for your business. If you are somebody that is on the fence with AI, this episode is for you. And at£149, you must listen. It's a very cost-effective piece of technology for your financial advice business. You're going to love this episode. So, Max, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planet Life podcast. Welcome to London and the members club. Very, very posh, isn't it? Yeah, very good. Yeah. I like the mahogany walls. Yeah. I know my street. You love it. Good. Excellent. Everyone seems to like it, actually. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay here because it's very, very warm. So we are going to think about a different location. So listen, thank you so much for coming in. And today we're going to talk about AI, which is such a super uh interesting topic. And actually, there's an article in the newspaper today. And I can tell you what, I haven't picked up a newspaper in probably five years. And it's really weird that today I'm talking about AI. And on page one of uh City AM is um is a conversation about uh AI. I just I thought, you know what? I've never done this before. It's a bit jack and ally. I'm gonna read it out. Okay. We're just gonna hopefully sort of share some views and opinions on it, I think. Yeah, you okay with that? Yeah, I think so. Great.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I'll say what before I do that though, what do you just introduce yourself? Sure. Uh so so Max Anderson, I'm co-founder uh of Wealth Space, qualified financial advisor. Um, and I'm here to talk about what we're about. Brilliant. Great stuff.

Market Fears And Advisor Futures

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So a deep dive into wealth space, what it's all about, who it's for, and how people can get stuck into using it. Exactly that. Brilliant. So let's see what the newspapers have got to say about AI this morning, okay? So shares in some of the UK's largest wealth managers tumbled on Wednesday as investors grew concerned about the potential competitive pressure from a new AI investment tool. Britain's biggest wealth group, St. James's place, plunged over 12%. After US-based wealth management platform, Altrist launched an AI tool dubbed Hazel. Hyperpersonal. Um, that was launched to help financial advisors personalize clients' investment strategies. And development from the Los Angeles headquartered company spooked investors, sparking fear across the market about how technological advancements may undermine the traditional aspects of the industry. It seems like every single week someone's been spooked by AI, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? So um can't can't move for uh AI uh for the past couple of years. Uh, and I think you know this has been coming. I can see that article's called contagion. Yeah. Uh so I think there's a certain amount of uh the markets are reacting and maybe not read too much into this specific um uh event. Um, however, we've had eyes wide open to this at Wealth Space, and it you know, it's certainly coming. And it's a question of when, uh not if. Right. So AI is coming and it's going to change the game. Is that going to um kill advisors or is that going to enable advisors? And that that has been the question. Um, and that is a question I think we are well placed to answer and to say that we can enable advisors and help them in this landscape um remain competitive and offer value to their clients in this brave new world. Got it. Great.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Well, listen, they've been advisors. You've been an advisor in the past, they've been charging quite um chunky fees by all accounts for quite a few years. Um, RDR made a massive difference to that and in a in a really positive good way. Yes, it destroyed the number of advisors out there, and we've got a big problem with the advice cap. And now AI seems to be coming along and threatening um the existence of advisors, possibly. Yeah, a lot of firms are saying, well, hang about actually, like you know, platform charges are really high, you know, advisor fees aren't as high as you actually think they are. And by the way, we've already got AI in our businesses, so you know, we're already looking into it. So this isn't this shouldn't be worrying us too much. But it's funny how it really does affect the markets. You've been a financial planner, right? Yes. So let's just get back to I want people to identify with the fact that you aren't just somebody that's you know having a go at AI, you've done the job that the people are interested in as careers with them with an old podcast. So how long were you a financial advisor for?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Sure. Well, I suppose if I give a little bit of a backstory, if I may, and you crack up, I'll I'll end up there. So uh if I if I go all the way back, I sort of had uh designs initially on being a professional rugby player. Um and for many reasons, including being too good at eating, that didn't work out. Um however, the club that I was a part of, uh their total sponsor was Novia.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Right.

Max’s Journey From Planner To Founder

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So Novia, the platform provider. Um, with familial and educational background in financial services, it seemed like a natural progression from pitch to uh the platform world. That was in 2012. So since then I've spent about half the time in uh fintech and half the time as a financial advisor. So uh I think it was 2017 that uh I became a financial advisor. Um and um restless history, as they say. Um I suppose the burning question is then where does wealth space come into it?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, I just want what sort of problems were you continually running into as an advisor? Because, you know, advisors do have difficulties on a day-to-day basis, and I wonder if you were experiencing the same. And then was that the catalyst for you actually setting up wealth space? So, what sort of challenges were you gumming up against and you seeing them today?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, absolutely. So um, yeah, great question. It was wealth space was born out of my own pain. Um, the the problem is capacity. The problem has always been capacity. Advice firms uh on the main are full, and it's how do you service additional clients? Um, how do you service additional clients? Full stop. So, how do you grow your sort of top line? Um, so that was the problem we're having, specifically in our advice business. Back end of 2024, we had the opportunity to buy a similar-sized advice business. Stacked up on paper, it was a very good business. Um, it made sense. However, we weren't resourced to do the ongoing review meetings, to do the paperwork, the administration that came with it, nor did we want to be resourced for that. So I'd been sitting in CPD events hearing about the coming AI apocalypse, uh, which seems to be coming to fruition now. Thanks. Uh we can see the contagion. Um, and I thought there must be something that at the time I can buy. Um, and believe it or not, back into 24, there wasn't anything in the market to buy. So we started building. Uh, and pretty quickly Wellspace became its own entity. We're two and a bit years later. Uh, it's been an education startup business. Um, but I'm pleased to report now that we have Gen 2 in the market. Brilliant. Listen, tell me a little bit about Wealth Space Gen 2 then. What's going on? Okay. So uh first things first, I'm very proud of it. It is a root and branch enhancement on Generation One. Uh, it is all been done in-house, UK-based, um, and it is based entirely on advisor feedback.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Um, so advisor feedback coupled with the technological advancements that are allowing us to really deliver on what our original vision was for wealth space two and a bit years ago. So we talk about Gen 2. What does that mean in practical sense up against Gen 1? Sure. So Gen 2 is full stack. It is an advisor operating system. We are in a place now where we can record the meeting, we can generate outputs, insights, we can use those insights rather to generate reports. Um, those reports can be sent to clients, they can be service surfaced on a client portal. Um, it is the full end-to-end piece for advisors. However, we have always maintained that we also work alongside existing tech stacks.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

So everything we have done is modular. So it can either be everything that you need or it can be exactly what you want.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Go into detail on that and explain that to me in a little bit more detail then, because obviously, one thing I do know out there in the financial planning profession, a lot of people do struggle to be able to like zapier different things together and connect. And there's so many different tech, and we called it this tech stack, but it gets uber confusing. I get super confused on my own with my marketing stuff. Yeah. Um so in financial planning, it becomes even more difficult. And actually, that's probably one of the biggest challenges, probably in financial planning. One of the biggest challenges in financial planning is being able to produce something that actually communicates across all tech, right? So just go into a little bit more detail.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, absolutely. So uh there are a set of modules in the system. Um, we have one which is a sort of a chat bot. Uh we've seen generative predictive text in the market, I'm sure. I'm sure your followers have come across it. And that is sort of a layer that sits across the system that talks to the rest of the system. Everything else is modular. So we have a reports module that you can use in isolation or with the rest of the system. We have a meetings module that you can use in isolation to record meetings or with the rest of the system. Uh, we have a few other cool tools which um which I'm sure we'll get into as well, um, which really sort of try and address advisors kind of pain points. So the this kind of key point being is you can use it for discrete modules and they stand alone, um, or you can use it for the full end-to-end process.

The Capacity Problem In Advice Firms

SPEAKER_01 9:25

I like it. Right. Okay, so like a one-stop type shop. Yep. Brilliant. Okay. So if we go into a little bit of detail about some of the features of what you actually do, and let's just start at the beginning where everyone talks about meeting notes and recording meetings and meeting notes. Now, to me, it sounds like everyone's working on it, therefore, it must be absolutely solved, cracked. There must be content, uh, sorry, there must be software out there or services out there that have nailed it. Is that the case? Do you think?

SPEAKER_00 9:49

So I think I think with meeting recording, yes, it has largely been cracked. I think the first thing to say on it is it's uh it's become table stakes and for good reasons. So documenting advice meetings um saves a lot of time, and firms have largely cracked it. It's a big tick in the compliance box and it saves time out the other side having a file note. Uh so I suggest, yes, a lot of firms, you know, we have largely cracked meeting transcription. So meeting recording cracked. What about the report writing? Sorry, the report writing side? Yeah, so uh a great question. I think this is where it becomes more contentious, and it's a much bigger fish to fry. Uh so rather foolishly in wealth space, perhaps, we started there because we identified that if you get the report writing right, you are fixing the biggest element of pain for your advisors. So I'd suggest that report writing is certainly one that there has been a lot of hype about, but firms are not delivering on it to the same extent. Why is it so variable and difficult to automate, for example? Yeah, why is it so why is it so difficult? They're not homogenous. Reports are not homogenous, they are big beasts. Um, each advice firm has a different CIP. Um, they have um a different sort of tone of voice, a different style, a different way they want to write reports. Each client has a different set of soft facts, and then if you lay on top of the facts, uh on top of that, the fact that they're all compliant documents, they're not homogenous uh things to produce. So it's not a case of just producing a few templates and going and banging that into every different advice business around the country.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Um, so they are difficult because of their varied nature. How did you sort of approach that wealth space then? Yeah, very good question. So the we really focused on configurability and flexibility, so allowing users to go in and build their templates to their own style and with their own um uh with their own themes with how how their reports work in their um in their businesses. We really, really focused on that, and that is a lot easier said than done. So we spent a lot of time doing that. Um, and to be clear, I'm not saying there that we go and build it for them. We have we have produced tools that allow them to build and maintain them themselves in the system. We can produce it for them, but they can also build and maintain it themselves in the system. And really pleasingly, in Gen 2, what I'm talking about there is sort of an AI generation of reports. Actually, in Gen 2, we've layered back in the old school. So variables from the system, the old school mail merge, not everything needs AI. Lots of it does, but not everything does. So you combine the two together and you end up with a really powerful reporting tool, uh, which is something that I'm I'm very excited about. So, what's the feedback firms are giving you about workflow change? So uh yeah, if we focus, if we stay on the sort of report uh side of things, uh I spoke to a customer recently actually about moving from Gen 1 to Gen 2. Uh, ostensibly, on the face of it, something that they should be very happy to do. Uh, but they were wary, uh and they quoted that they brought their reporting time down from 90 minutes to 20 minutes, so 75% um saving and the time it took them to generate a report using Gen 1 of Wealth Space. All of that functionality is available in Gen 2, but we have everything else with it. So the feedback on the report writing has been excellent, uh, very good. I can also speak to the feedback on Gen 2, but perhaps we pick that up in a bit.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yeah, I love it. Um what does that that time save? What does it unlock, you know, for the client, these financial planning firms? What does it mean to them, really?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Uh what does it mean to them? Two things it means either they can service more clients or they can have more time back to themselves. So it's work-life balance, or it's increasing the amount of revenue that's coming through the door. What motivates you? Um a bit of both. A bit of both. You bread on the table, absolutely, some of the finer things in life, but I think ultimately work-life balance is is number one.

Building Wealth Space And Gen 2

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Do you feel that's what most people are actually seeing the value in is getting that work-life balance back?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

I would suggest that people that are looking at it, it's probably 60-40 people trying to grow their business.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Both equally valid. I actually had a conversation with an advisor recently, uh very topical given the Winter Olympics at the moment. Um, he said to me, I don't want to grow my business. I have enough clients, revenue is fine, I would like to just spend more time on the slopes. And that is a perfectly valid reason for utilizing the technology.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Oh, sorry for interrupting the Financial Planner Life podcast. I hope you're enjoying it. Now, if you think that you would like to be a guest on the podcast, because you have a product, a service, or a business that you would like to promote, maybe you want to attract some new talent to your business, there is a link in the comments where you can actually apply to come on the Financial Planner Life podcast. You get that full end-to-end experience that you're so used to from the Financial Planner Life Studios. And if you feel like you've got a podcast that you'd like to start, or maybe a video project, again, click the link in the comments section and book a meeting, and let's discuss that project and get it going in 2026. Now, back to the show. I love it. Good. Okay. That's the way I look at AI. I don't see it as like something that should be demonized. I see it as something that's going to allow us as human beings to uh either double down on the thing that we love doing, which is building our business. Yeah. Right. Servicing more clients, making more money, hopefully. But maybe not. Maybe the price comes down, you've got to service more clients to maintain the level of income you're used to, right? Yeah. Um, but the other side of it is I feel like it's going to increase the human connection. Yes. You know, the ability for us to spend more time together, sit down, talk, and connect and, you know, open ourselves up to a deeper relationship as human beings, which is what makes us happy. You know, we spend a lot of our times in front of computers, head down, and things that actually drive us nuts. Yeah. That sort of thing drives me nuts, right? Uh if I can never look at a laptop again for the rest of my life or any kind of computer system, I would be super happy. If I could do this for the rest of my life, I definitely would be super happy. And I know I'd probably be more super successful. Yeah. You know, I really do think that. I think the more human connection I have, the happier I will be, the more impactful I the more impactful I can be on other people's lives as well. Yeah. And that's the way I look at it. And that's the way I see AI is taking away the crap, the things that I don't want to do to free me up to be the best version of myself that I can be. And I hope that does the same for you. So you can just sit there and just go, right, let's make something. You know, let's let's talk about things that we can do together that improves humanity or something.

Modular OS: Meetings, Reports, Portal

SPEAKER_00 16:05

That's that's the way I see it. That's a really good point. It's a bit of a hackneyed phrase these days, but one of the sort of original kind of strap lines of AI was it takes away the bits that advisors don't want to do and allows them to focus on what they do like to do and what they're good at, which is given advice. And that speaks exactly to what you've just um what we've just described there. And I agree with wholeheartedly. And actually, if I go back to the original conceit of wealth space, it was to be able to create a system that an advisor can literally talk into as if they were talking to another person in the room. That leads us on to Ramble to Action, I think. Indeed, yeah. So uh it's a tool in our toolkit, uh Ramble to Action. Um, it is, to all intents and purposes, a task management tool. Uh, but one of the first things I was asked uh for by an advisor when creating WealthSpace was the ability for the advisor to be able to download their thoughts, get everything out of their brain after an advice meeting. So this specific scenario was have an advice meeting. This is an advice meeting, normally on client site. They're driving back afterwards and everything's in their head, and they just want to get it all out. So the idea of Ramble is for advisors to be able to capture their thoughts at a time that those thoughts transpire. So be that in the car, using CarPlay, maybe they're out on a run and they're using uh their sort of uh Apple Watch or Android watch, um, or indeed in the office and you're sort of talking into your laptop. It's the ability to uh spiel, for want of a better word, into the system. We use the natural language processing, turn that into something coherent, and we create a cut task in the system which can either be assigned to the client or to the advisor, or both, or to yourself. But the point is it's out of the advisor's head and it can be picked up at a time that is convenient for the advisor. And it sounds super simple, um, but it really seems to make a difference, and advisors love it. And you know, perhaps sometimes we overcomplicate things, and it's the simple things that that really kind of move the needle. Um, and that that's where we are today. That then becomes really powerful when you layer uh agency over the top. So the ability to say something to it and it actively goes and does it in the system. And that is something that we are quite excited about and working towards as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

We love it. Just go into a bit more detail around that. Give me an example of that that you're working on and what you hope to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Sure, absolutely. So um, a really simple sort of action would be please create a client. So you are sat at your desk or on a bench or wherever it is, and you're talking, you say, please create Mr. Joe blogs in the system for me. And that's it. It goes and does that for you. So we we have a set of defined actions in the system. There's about 200 defined sort of agentic actions whereby uh through natural language processing, so by talking to the system, it goes and does the thing for you. So it is controlled, and we make sure that uh it can't run off and um you know set fires, essentially. Um but yeah, so that's that's a really simple example. Create a client for me. Great stuff. Um the extrapolation of that, and one that's more complex, but we're working towards, is please look at the meeting that I've just had with Mr. Blow Joe blogs and produce an annual review report for me based on the output. Right. And when we get there, then that really is the holy grail. How far away are we there? Uh the constituent parts are there, um, the devil's in the detail in terms of stitching it all together. Um but I would suggest it's it's a this year thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Give us some real life examples of how a power planner or a financial advisor in today would use Ramble to action.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Uh how they use it today. Well, okay, so uh if I go back to the example we spoke about uh at the top, uh so an advisor's come out of a meeting and they're driving home. Um perhaps uh in that meeting they've spoken about uh some policies that the advisor wasn't aware about, or maybe maybe it was a new meeting, so they've spoken about policies and they have some letters of authority to create, and they need to write off to the um seating providers to get information on that policy. Um something an advisor could do in that scenario, whilst driving home, is create a ramble and say, please can you ask XYZ and the office to produce a letter of authority uh to get information on this policy? Job done as far as the advisor's concern is out of their head.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So it's kind of it is a little bit like having a virtual assistant, isn't it? That's the idea. But you're removing the human element of it, yeah, which can be challenging at times because the human isn't always going to do it exactly when you want it to be done. Yeah. And if you're somebody that has an idea and you want that action straight away, that's powerful, right? That was like for from thought to action, yeah, it's huge. Yeah. And I think for somebody that's entrepreneurial, on the go, trying to see more clients, trying to spend more time out there, less time doing administration. Is it difficult though? Because um I I I s I I would say it's taken me 12 months to move from typing into my chat GPT to speaking into it more.

unknown 20:57

Yeah.

Why Report Writing Is Hard

SPEAKER_01 20:57

And are you finding that transition with advisors? Like um, oh, I just don't do it. I don't use it because you know, I I I just still, you know, you still type in away. Does that, you know, are you there is a kind of it's almost teaching yourself to do something differently. Yeah. And there has to be a kind of goal to it or a value add to doing it. Yeah. For me, actually, when I do the speaking into it, I and get I think it picks up on my tonality a lot better. Yeah. Um, and the style of how I speak in the language that I use. And it doesn't go so much into this kind of you know, AI spiel that everybody's popping out on LinkedIn or whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah. I I don't think we have experienced that challenge actually. I think um perhaps this is maybe broad brush, but I think a lot of advisors are quite uh they're sort of natural oritators, they like to speak. So I think for a lot of advisors it it comes relatively naturally. In fact, I was speaking to another advisor, uh before Ramble, their process was they were driving home, they would call themselves and leave a voicemail. Um, so uh we have then essentially all. Automated that form and turn that turn that voicemail into a voicemail into a system record. Um, so um I underst I understand this sort of challenge and and I can see it, but actually no, I think advisors have been they're quite ready for it. Quite ready for that. How about the other way around then?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Could could could the AI contact me and say, you haven't done this? Can you just let me know what their name is or you're missing this document? Can you when when are you gonna put it in? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Does it do that? Yeah, so um so AI is good at that. Yeah, it it it has a checklist that it can check against and it can see whether something's done or not. Um we have the concept of an activity center in the system and it produces notifications for all the users. So yes, the short answer.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Annual meetings.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yes. Yeah, uh advisors have to deliver on annual meetings, some do it annually, um, some never at all. Yeah, um, others do it on a coursely basis, you know. Sometimes you just catch up with people on the on the regular. Yeah. Um you've got something which is called like annual to always. Yeah. Very interested to hear about annual to always. Can you just go into a little bit of detail about that?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, so um we haven't necessarily invented the wheel here with the fact that we provide a client portal. So through our advisors, we provide a portal which they can give to their clients. Right. Annual to always means that regardless of how good the advice is, invariably a client needs to feel loved on something of an ongoing basis. So giving them something tangible that they can touch and engage with, interact with a client on an ongoing basis is something that normally leads to better outcomes for both the advisor and the client. So that sort of client portal as a thing. Where we've sort of looked at it through a slightly different lens is we've we've thought, well, how can this portal uh result in less admin for the advisor and create a perceived value for the end client, which is sort of a slightly different lens to portfolio evaluations and documentation, which incidentally we can do both of those as well. Um, but we sort of thought, well, well, how do we take that a bit further? And in the spirit of what we're trying to do, how do we take pain away from advisors? Uh so we came up with a couple of cool tools. Uh, one of them is called news, um, which is the concept of we collate news from from the around the web uh on sort of financial go-ins on, if you will, and we present it to the advisor in Wealth Space.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Right.

Time Savings And Business Impact

SPEAKER_00 24:21

The advisor is then able to choose which of those articles they think are relevant to their clients, and they're able at the touch of a button to then uh present that to their client in the portal. Uh it shows up in a created for you section in the portal, uh, and it acts as a really nice touch point for the clients. So, from the advisor's point of view, they've had to read a couple of articles that they may well have read anyway, they've touched a button and their clients feeling loved. So, again, that's sort of a really nice kind of value add that sounds simple, but again, it seems to be the simple things that really kind of take away the pain. Um, so that's one of the things we've we've done, which is really cool. The other one, which has been very well received by advisors, is the idea of a presentation or rather a report presentation. So, suitability reports, very important documents. They can be turgid, they are compliant documents, you have to have XYZ in them. Um we have produced the ability to put those documents onto the portal, uh, because we have to for compliance, and uh clients need to read them, but then turn those into essentially slide decks. Um, so pull out the key information and present it to the client in a consumable way. Uh, and that is something that has been very well received. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Um, you know, when like uh markets are going crazy, right? You know, Trump said something and everyone's going, oh my god, I'm gonna sell, right? You know, and it's like, no, hold, wait it out, you know, it's gonna change, it's gonna go back up again. Or now is maybe a great time to actually start buying some, you know, investing some more money, yeah. Um, it's like when I was in Dubai, Chris Boy used to always say, he used to say it's um timing the market is time in the market, right? So it's keeping those people calm, yeah, the clients calm. Yeah. Um one of my concerns with like always sort of always having access or always having being able to access that information is one, it becomes probably possibly addictive for the client to constantly be going in and checking how things are doing, which is probably unhealthy. Yep. Yeah, because you seem like kind of micro ups and downs all the time, really, which creates like mic like anxiety when uh you know investing is a long game. Yep. There's a little kind of like concern on that. The other one for me is like, okay, cool. So markets have gone crazy, you know, it's changed. Uh news comes out, they're consuming that news. Does that mean that you can you can create the news relevant to what's going on in the market and you can react to it as well?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah. Yeah. So so what you've spoken to there really well is sort of behavioral biases in finance. So one of those behavioural biases is the concept that as humans, if we feel pain, we want to do something. Uh and one of the big things that advisors have to do, uh, as you touched on, is sort of coach away those behavioural biases and make sure that in that instance, so if we're feeling pain, we don't do something uh irrational. Uh and uh hopefully we end up with better sort of client outcomes as a result. Um, so how does that sort of play into the portal? Well, it I agree. Logging in and checking your portfolio valuation on a daily basis uh is not necessarily a good thing. However, we live in a world where information is available on a daily basis and client expectations are becoming that it is something that they can do. So it's how how do we mitigate against that? And through being able to be proactive on the portal, being able to put these sort of curated messages on there, you're able to um sort of appease um any client worries in that regard. So um, I absolutely agree with the premise. Um, I think uh in reality, we're in a world where clients expect it, so it's how do we get the best outcomes in that scenario?

SPEAKER_01 27:51

I guess as well, with these um with the uh thing from a marketing head as well, right? Touch points.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

If they're not going into the portal, because it's another thing they gotta go into because they spend all their time on LinkedIn or they spend all their time on Facebook or whatever, yeah. Is there an opportunity with your tech to be able to then create and create social posts that then as long as you're following that individual and they're following you, which is a good thing to do. Yeah, you know, it's another touch point, isn't it? Could that automatically do that as well? Like automatically you create a post and put it out.

Human Connection, Not Robot Replacement

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Uh yes. So uh there's absolutely opportunity to do that, and there's there's a couple of ways you could probably go about doing that now. And immediately in the system right now, we have something called uh we've termed them flares. Uh previously in generation one, they were called bespoke prompts, but it was the idea of having a prompt which you have previously defined, which you submit into the system and it produces a similar result every time. So one of those could be please produce me a LinkedIn um post based on relevant sort of uh news articles. What that would do then was it would go away, it would search the internet, it would pull back relevant information, and it would draft a post for you and present it to you in the chat. So that's one way of doing it. Um the sort of the the next step of that, which I think is sort of probably alluding to, is well, you've got these news articles already. Why don't we add a button that says, okay, let's push that to LinkedIn as a through and through post? Um and I think that's a good idea and want to have a look at.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

The suit you know, suitabil the suitability reports, right? Can be quite long-winded. Yes. A little bit boring. Yes. And you mentioned about slide decks. Yes. What's the feedback on that then from people using it? So you're putting I would love I would much prefer something visual to come into my inbox and something I've got to sit there and sit there and read.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah. Um, it's as simple as people love it. So the feedback's really good. Uh it's probably not news to your followers to hear that quite often advisors will issue a suitability report and they'll issue the suitability report with a set of instructions for what the client should actually look at. Um, and they may or may not read the whole suitability report. The ability to sort of essentially automate that and give them something that a client can consume and it gets through to them and it makes sense, it is better around. And the feedback has been that both advisors and their clients um love it.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Can you track whether or not the person's actually read it? They stopped at page three or four, or uh, I think that's a very good idea.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Oh, there we go. Get it in there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Love it. Fantastic. I've been in recruitment for 16 years. I saw my recruitment business. Um, I got it out. Um, I know how hyper competitive it is in um a financial planning space. It's not getting any easier. Um, still a distinct lack of people coming in. Yes. Um, I think it's about 9,000 power planners. You know, people want power planners, the cost of power planners is going up. I remember I recruited for a power planner once, and the salary was 80,000 for a power planner because they were just could not find somebody. Yeah. And then they're looking for remote people, and then there's the whole kind of culture thing. So hiring talent and um bringing talent in, one is can be quite expensive, and it's it's it's hyper competitive, not only to find, yeah. So there's fees attached to that if you use recruitment agencies as well, but also to retain, because if you've got a talented individual that's in demand, then every other everybody else is targeting that person as well. So it causes a lot of problems, um, stops growth, um, creates anxiety in business owners. And you know, I laugh, but you know, I had 25 people in my business, and there's nothing more anxiety-inducing is when you spend a shit ton of money on people in training and development and employee benefits and all the things that you think you should do to keep that person in place, and um, they walk out the door. Um, and it really feels gutting, you know. Um, do you think AI is solving the problem around um uh the distinct lack of talent that's out there?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Um well, the talent that's out there is very talented. That's good. The amount of the talent, um yeah, I I I certainly see the point. We we have a concept uh in our business of head counter headroom for our advisors. So this is a concept of advisors are at capacity, and in in order to expand in the old world, they have to go and recruit. Yeah, and that is to your point, hiring advisors, hiring power planners, hiring administrative staff. Uh and the good ones are snapped up. Um, there is a sort of a dearth of talent. Um, so so what do you do? It's easier said than done. Our sort of concept, so that's head count to head room. Well, okay, if you use technology well, efficiently, you increase your capacity, you're able to uh increase the value of your business, increase the capacity in your business, increase the amount of clients that you service using your existing staff, using your existing um company, essentially. Um, so I think the short answer to your question is yes. I absolutely think that it can solve that problem.

Ramble To Action: Thoughts To Tasks

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Okay, so not many firms actually are using AI. Uh huh. I think it's like 25%, isn't it, or something, of advice firms are actually using. Yeah, properly engaged with it, yeah. Yeah, so it would be super forward-thinking and intelligent for these firms who have power planners perhaps to upskill them on the tech and the AI. Yeah. Empower them to become experts in it, yeah, to be more efficient.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yep. Would you say? Yeah, everyone wins.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Everyone wins. So the business owner gets a more valuable business. The power planners are the cutting edge of technology and of power planning.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Um, I do not see a downside in that scenario. Plus, more clients get the benefit of the value of advice.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah. So power planners, when they're in the business and they're looking to add value to a company and perhaps they haven't actually looked at AI yet, should really be sort of championing that and maybe taking their own um their own initiative and going out and looking at wealth space and getting some demos and looking about like how can I use something that's A going to upskill me and make me more valuable as an employee, but also make my business hopefully more profitable and save um some time. So my my boss, for example, will be very happy with me because he's not stressing out so much. Um maybe that's one of the big problems, really, because it's a bit of a cottage cottage industry. I don't keep saying that, but it shouldn't really. But it's a small, small businesses within financial planning. So a lot of the people that run those businesses wear so many hats that they just don't really have the time maybe dedicated to really understand AI and to really understand the implementation of it, the time it takes, um, and all those typical types of things. So perhaps empowering somebody within the business to take on that responsibility is a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah. So I so I think there's a couple of things to pick up in in that, and I I agree with it all wholeheartedly. On the power planner side of things, um, it absolutely, and it it doesn't not that there's a suggestion that it does, but it doesn't diminish the skills of the power planner. All of the skills that are power that are requisite in a power planner are still needed. They still need to know what needs to go into a suitability report, they still need to have the relevant qualifications, they still need to produce the ultimate output and eyeball it and make sure that it is compliant and suitable. But they also are able to then cut out the stuff that is arguably not as enjoyable. Sat in front of a machine typing out sort of words upon words. Um I I really think that it, like I said before, everyone wins, power planner or otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

What I'm gonna ask you is you had your own practice. Uh did you implement this technology and did it save you time and money?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Uh yes and yes. So uh ultimately uh it sort of made me redundant, really. So wealth space is now the gig. Um, and I wasn't backfilled uh in the practice, still exists, still still going. Um, um, and it uses technology to pick up that capacity.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Okay, cool. This is really interesting. So you have an advice firm, you now are full-time on wealth tech, um, so wealth space. Um, that wealth tech is now in your actual financial planning business and it replaced you. Yep. And it didn't cost an absolute arm and a leg. So let's talk about that now. Sure. So to replace you, yeah, to allow the business to continue running and to free up time and energy and all of that. Yeah, how much does that actually cost?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Sure. Well, first and sales eyes, obviously, super good value. Yeah. Uh but£149 a month for an advisor.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Wow. So£149 a month replaced replaced you.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Essentially, yeah. Which is sort of terrifying when it's sort of read out loud and kind of plays into the contagion article that we touched on at the top of the uh at the top of the piece. Uh so it's about making that work for you as an advisor rather than against you.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Well, I think that's really, really interesting. And I think it leads to a conversation I want to have with you around the average um client book of an advisor. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Which is well, so uh again, sort of internally, we we have a few concepts that we bounce around, and one of them is sort of 80 clients to exit. So we have this avatar of a client book, which is which is 80 sort of client families, half a million um AUM per client family and 75 bips is an ongoing advice charge. So there we have an advisor that has 80 relationships, maybe 160 relationships, because it's it's not it's not often just one person, but 80 client families and it's about 300,000 pounds in uh incoming revenue. Right. Um, we have this concept of 80 clients to exit. So if you turn 300,000 pounds into an exit figure, let's say you get a four times uh multiple, you're at 1.2 million pounds, which uh you know is very much not to be sniffed at. If, however, over sort of three to five years um you can increase your capacity by 50% and you can turn your 80 client families into 120 client families, you haven't incurred any additional cost and you work the same amount of hours, well then you've increased your revenue from 300,000 to 450,000, which increases your exit on a four times multiple from 1.2 million to 1.8 million. So for the sake of£149 a month,£600,000 over three to five years if you fill that capacity on an exit value, which is nuts. I mean, that that's why would you not do that? And then if you lay on top of that the fact that an inquirer uh an acquirer is going to love the fact that you have documented your meetings and you have all of your reports uh all there and correct and present, um, and they can see that all the advice you've given is kosher, then you really are setting the business up for a successful exit if that is what you are trying to do. And you seeing firms do this.

Agentic Actions And Automation

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Uh well, yes, absolutely. So um well, that in its own right is just a value add, right? If someone's listening to this and they don't have any AI in place at the moment, and you've got a piece of technology for£149 a month that with the right level of um uh foresight, ambition, and focus could easily increase the sale increase the sale value of your business over however long it takes you to build those client relationships upright. And you still gotta go out and prospect, right? Yeah, why exactly? Still got to go and find them, but you've got the time to do it. Yeah, that to me is a no-brainer, and you haven't had to spend money on bringing anybody else in into the business.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Yeah. And that's what the concept of sort of saying we still gotta go out and prospect. Absolutely right. But uh I think there was a Lancat study in 2024, 55% of the firms they um surveyed said they've turned away clients sort of partly as a result of consumer duty, but that you know the capacity is already there. The demand is already sorry, rather, the demand is already there, they just need to create the capacity to um to serve them.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Okay, so 19 um million, I think, uh households with a hundred thousand or more uh not getting financial advice, so demand there, opportunity there, firms having to turn away clients, or perhaps choosing not to work with those clients because they're after clients that are more profitable because of the time it takes to service those clients. Uh yeah, and yes. Okay. Does that then mean that in respect of this advice gap that we have, yeah, that your technology is something that could actually really positively impact it?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yeah, so that's that's a really interesting uh point. So the advice gap, my traditional stance on the advice gap as an advisor is it's not the advisor's problem.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Um, so advisors, they're running their businesses, they're dealing with the clients they deal with. They are happy they're giving good advice, they bring in new clients to the top of their book. And it's sort of a universal truth, really, that regardless of the size of the uh the clients that you sort of target, you have a bottom end of the book and you have a top end of the book, and ultimately you're trying to fill up the top end and uh maybe elegantly disengage with the bottom end.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

So historically, the advice gap, not the advisor's problem. However, in the new world, in we may end up in a scenario where it's well, you figure out how you service more clients or you become redundant. So the the article that we referenced a few times in this in this podcast is sort of playing towards that SJP down 12%, um, uh as a as a result of market contagion and fears around being able to charge advisor fees. Yeah. Um, I think that advisors do need to look at ways that they can get on the front foot and use technology to um to do this.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

So most advisors don't really want to turn away clients because they want to be able to help and help people, right? It's a big part of why people become financial planners in the first place. They want to help as many people as they can.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Love that. What opportunity does that actually open up to the firms themselves and say um younger advisors perhaps coming into the profession?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Younger. Well, so younger advisors, um, again, broad brush, but I suppose sort of technologically literate, point one, ambitious, point two, they're going to be looking to grow. Uh, and a bit of a clean slate as well, point three. So uh it kind of doesn't matter how good the tech is. Sometimes going into an incumbent firm can be difficult because you have to change processes, you have to move things around. We've built wealth space to be as malleable and as flexible as possible to do that. But if you're a younger advisor coming in to um into the profession, you have a clean slate. You should set up to see how efficient that you you can service your clients and deliver excellent value with as little overhead as possible. And that is how you are going to um stay competitive and and ultimately win the game.

Nurturing Clients: Annual To Always

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Advisors are required to show cost constantly. So why is articulating value so much harder these days?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Sure. So I agree, we have to show cost constantly. So initial meeting, we show our costs, suitability report, we show the cost. Uh in the illustration, we show the cost and we show the reduction in yield to show what that cost has an effect on the uh value of the assets. Annual review, we then show the costs again. Remember those three costs I showed you before? We're showing you again on an annual basis and I'll make a two statement. It is all very important, but it is therefore not a surprise that sometimes clients focus on cost rather than the value that's been added by the advisors. And the value of advice has been independently and empirically proven. Uh, two studies that come to mind are the International Longevity Centre in conjunction with Royal London. Uh, they did a big study on the value of advice, and they concluded that it's about£48,000 was the uh value of advice. Uh, then there's the uh sort of often-mentioned one as well, the Vanguard Advice Alpha. Uh and I think they quote it about 3% as the advice alpha, so the value of giving advice. So it's empirically proven, but all we have to do on a regulatory sort of basis is show our cost. So we've thought, thinking about advisors' pain points, how can we enable advisors to articulate the value to their clients alongside these costs, these MIFI2 statements you have to give on an annual basis? Uh so we built a tool which enables advisors to track the value they add alongside the costs. So it might be you gave a piece of IST advice and you save the client 200 grand in inheritance tax, for example. Uh, it might be that you corrected a behavioral bias and you stopped a sort of uh an ill advised transaction, you save the client a load of money. It might be as simple as you put them into a more cost effective but still appropriate. Appropriate solution. All of those are sort of value ads which tend to maybe kind of get lost in translation from a client point of view. And we just want to surface that and present it to the client in a pretty repeatable, easy way, so the client can see uh the value that's being added by taking advice alongside the cost.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

That's that is good for everybody, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

A hundred percent. So, what I want to end on is that I know that you're working on something at the moment and it's brand new. Yep, it's coming out. FPL first. It's called Polaris, which is a fantastic name, by the way. Tell us about what that is and what problem it's solving.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yeah, so super excited about it. So Polaris North Star, we're wealth spaced. The name sort of made sense. It is fixing a pain for financial advisors that I don't believe the market is going at. And it's something we've sort of the theme throughout this art conversation. And that is that there is universal truth that an advisor book is made up of the ones at the top of the book and the ones at the bottom of the book that aren't necessarily economical to service. And advisors don't want to disengage with those clients. They might be growth clients, they might be clients of family members, rather, they might be, yeah, family members of clients. Um, they need to have a way to service them. And we are looking to provide a junior advisor, if you will, for an advice firm to be able to service these clients on a technological basis, which sounds a bit wishy-washy, but what we're trying to do is uh enable financial advisors with the tools that all the other companies are trying to create to cut advisors out. So we're saying, hey, we're going to provide you the tool to continue to operate as a financial advisor as well as serving the the bottom end of your book. So how does Polaris actually work in principle? In a real-world scenario, we're we're in a world where the traditional advice business has a senior advisor or junior advisor, the the lower value clients may be serviced by the junior advisor.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

The junior advisor has a question, they want to refer up to the senior advisor. Um, and we're kind of replicating that with technology. So the client the clients have a Polaris who they can interact with.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Yeah.

Calming Behavioural Bias With Content

SPEAKER_00 46:06

And then for if there's certain thresholds, if they want to do certain things in the system, then it goes to the senior advisor. It's a Polaris like a robo advisor. Essentially, yeah, but it has but the the there are two there are two distinct differences. So one is there's always the advisor triage, there's still an advisor relationship. So anything that's either significant, so a large withdrawal or large trade, has to be triaged with the advisor, and also at any point the user can say, I would like to check this with the advisor, and it goes through to the advisor. So that's point one. But point two is it's it's actually going to be uh a decision engine and investment proposition in and of itself, so it will form part of the advisor's CIP, right? Um, so they will have their investments that they choose for their clients at the top end of the book, and they might go, okay, well, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Bloggs, you're in at 250,000. You're not traditionally economical for us, but we have this offering in our CIP, which is to go on to Wealth Space and Polaris. They go through our decision engine, we they then end up in assets that are defined by us, um, and we manage that client for them. And there is the sort of 50-50 relationship, and because there's a triage there, the advisor is still able to charge an ongoing fee, consumer duty, and all that, as well as maintain the relationship as they grow. Um, and the client is still able to feel loved because it's all within the wealth-based portal. They actually have more touch points than the traditional client, and they're able to triage with the advisor all the time. And then as they grow, there's a natural threshold. In fact, we're setting it 250,000 as default, but advisors can raise it to half a million, at which point they then move back into the advisor's sort of higher value CIP. Right. And then the advisor can go, okay, well, that's potentially no longer appropriate. We need to think about a different solution, or they might say it's fine, but either way from the client, they then they have uh main they're maintained on the same portal, so it's all in the same front end. So as far as they're concerned, they've just gone through the advisor's process of rising up through the ranks essentially. This sounds fantastic. When is this actually coming out? Yeah, so uh middle of the year is the target. There's a few sort of sort of thresholds to jump through, um uh hoops to jump through rather. Uh but yeah, middle of the year, and it's uh yeah, it's an exciting thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

I was gonna say that you must be excited about that because that's game changing. And I think a lot of firms are gonna be very interested in that. Very, very interested, very economical, proven background. You've done the job, you made yourself redundant with the technology that you've actually built, and the business is still there doing well, so that's good to hear. Um, and it's not overly complicated. This sounds really, really good. How can people find out a little bit more about this?

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Yeah, very good. Uh wellspace.co.uk. Yeah. Uh shiny website. Yeah. I like your website, actually. It's really nice. Oh, thank you very much. Shows everything you need to know. Get in touch with us.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Um and do you do you run through like a demonstration with them or do you and visit them? How do you do it?

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Absolutely. So this there's sort of two ways that uh you can sign up. There is uh, there is, yeah, get in touch with us, um, put in place a demonstration. Cool, we'll talk you through the system, we'll show it to you. You say, okay, that sounds good, we'll put you on a free trial, you have a play around, make a decision whether it's for you or not. So that's a sort of traditional, sort of higher touch journey, uh one we're very comfortable with and provides a lot of value. If that's not for you, there is also a quick sign up option, uh, which involves watching a quick tutorial video. There's a quick sort of quiz at the end, CPD styley to prove that you watch the video. Okay. Uh you put your sort of FCA number in and then you're in. And then you have your free trial and jobs are good. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

So I'll tell you what, any of those links, if you give them to me, we'll put them in the show notes. Very good. Anybody who's listening and wants to find out a little bit more about Wealth Space or maybe go through any kind of those demonstrations, sign up or anything along those lines, check the link uh because it'll be there for you to get stuck into. Listen, Max, absolute pleasure. Nice to meet you again. Obviously, I won't have met you in Bath. We are local. Indeed. And um, good luck with the journey in that North Star. I love it. Likewise, thank you very much. Cheers, Max.