Introducing Advice Innovation Hub: The Next Evolution in Financial Advice
After two decades in financial advice, I'm on a mission to streamline financial advice delivery with AI powered productivity apps for financial advisers and their teams
I'm excited to share a new project I've been working on. It's called Advice Innovation Hub, and it represents the next evolution in a journey I've been on for over 20 years now.
I started in the industry as a financial adviser in 2002. In 2013 I co-founded VBP which became one of the largest outsourced admin and paraplanning providers in the Philippines for Australian financial advice firms.
Along the way, I've seen how valuable great advice is, and how slow and expensive it can be to deliver.
That's why in 2023, I started building a software product called Planorate. I thought if I could just bring more structure and systematisation to the advice process, that would go a long way towards improving advice delivery.
I eventually discontinued it. It didn't go far enough in solving the challenges of advice delivery. It still required too much manual data entry and processing by the adviser and their team.
What if instead of this traditional approach to building software we went all in on AI?
How to Use AI in Advice Delivery?
But how do we get AI to help with advice delivery? How do we leverage this incredibly powerful tool?
The interface most of us are familiar with is the ChatGPT-style interface where you just type in something and it generates output: help with an email, or asking a question you might have previously asked Google. I'm sure most of you have tried this, and might even use it regularly now.
But here's what I've learned: the key to using AI in advice delivery is breaking down tasks for AI to do, just like you would for a team member. Give it very focused and specific tasks to work on.
The Right Way to Use AI
Generic ChatGPT Approach
- • "Help me write this email"
- • Vague, open-ended prompts
- • Inconsistent results
- • Limited context understanding
Results: Hit or miss
Task-Focused AI Approach
- ✓ Specific, well-defined tasks
- ✓ Rich context and training
- ✓ Consistent, reliable output
- ✓ Treat AI like a team member
Results: Consistently excellent
Think of AI as a new team member. You wouldn't just tell a new staff member to "help with advice" - you'd give them specific tasks, proper training, and clear context. The same principle applies to AI.
I've found that the more specific the tasks you give AI, the better the output. Sure, sometimes you can get something amazing with a quick prompt, but for consistent, professional results in advice delivery, you need structured, well-defined tasks.
Introducing Strategy Engine: Our First AI-Powered Product
With this approach in mind, I'm excited to introduce the first AI product of Advice Innovation Hub: Strategy Engine.
Strategy Engine is designed to help with the task of analysing strategy recommendations. This is something that before AI was incredibly complex to program a computer to do. But with the right context and a tightly focused task, these are the sorts of tasks that you can teach AI to do, and we're getting really good results.
How Strategy Engine Works
BetaBefore AI
- ✗ Manual calculations for each strategy
- ✗ Hours of analysis per client
- ✗ Complex compliance checking
- ✗ Difficult to programme traditional software
With Strategy Engine
- ✓ AI analyses strategies in seconds
- ✓ Focused tasks with rich context
- ✓ Consistent, high-quality output
- ✓ Trained on compliance requirements
By giving AI a tightly focused task with the right context and training, we're achieving results that were previously impossible with traditional software.
Join the Early Access Program
It's early days for Strategy Engine, it's a beta version with big ambitions. Right now, I'm looking for a small group of forward-thinking advisers to be part of this early journey.
If you're a financial adviser, part of a tech-curious team experimenting with technology in your firm, someone who wants to shape tools that solve real problems, or someone building in this space, I'd love to hear from you.
Let's build the future of advice delivery together.