As a financial planner you can be certain that by the time your clients engage with you to structure their financial future, they have done the Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform round. Tools like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Gemini would have been consulted to run accurate retirement calculations, compare fee structures and explore financial strategies.
AI is fast transforming retirement planning in more ways than many realise. It is not only changing how clients access information, but also what they expect from financial planners or fund managers.
What clients are already doing and expecting
In today's digital age, clients no longer want to wait for information, complete endless forms, or navigate clunky processes.
Everything must happen at the click of a button: whether it is instant calculations on retirement sufficiency, checking fund balances or selecting options. Instant, intuitive and seamless is the norm.
AI is significantly impacting what financial planners can do. It enables real time access to data, smart digital forms and automated document certification, and even intelligent chatbots or virtual assistants.
There is no question that you must be ahead of the curve. In our practice, we have dedicated a team to AI innovation and using AI to enhance the overall value proposition.
Innovative ways to use AI in enhancing your retirement planning services
1. Train for consistency
You can't leave your individual team members to each learn AI their own way. We believe teams should run training sessions to get everyone on the same page on how to use AI platforms effectively. Suddenly you'll find AI examples will become the discussion point in the office, as natural learning, but in a structured manner.
Run this simple example:
A 42-year-old woman earning R500,000 annually and contributing a specific percentage towards retirement savings. How well off is she?
DeepSeek was the quickest with the most detailed analysis: calculating the required growth rate based on key assumptions and expanding on the steps followed to reach different calculations such as the capital lump sum needed at retirement. It even “strongly recommended” the “client” books an appointment with a Certified Financial Planner as a next step.
ChatGPT also provided a detailed answer but took 2 minutes and 3 seconds to respond. It shared information on the growth rate the “client” would need on her investment to compound and hit the required fund value at retirement.
2. Unregulated products in the highly regulated financial services environment
Currently AI is unregulated in South Africa – something both financial planners and clients need to understand. Organisations must operate under a strict set of rules and have an internal AI policy designed for efficient and ethical use.
The use of AI as an open source of information to all, comes with data security issues. No personal information should be fed into AI models. And we believe it important to have the highest security clearance possible from various of the large banks and other international groups. We do not see this as a burden – it is a necessity to know that your data is secure and survives penetration testing.
3. Our client consultation style is changing towards AI
During consultations we encourage clients to use AI models alongside our advice and to validate our calculations, for benchmarking and exploring different scenarios. They play around on their own anyway, so why not educate them and ensure they do not ask the wrong questions – which invariably gives the incorrect answers.
4. Build small usable AI applications
Our view is not to make a massive investment in technology where you do not know what it will achieve. Rather make many small investments creating a compounding effect - a concept any financial planner worth their salt can certainly relate to.
Technical foundations that matter
Regardless of your strategic belief about all these issues, AI is going to play a major role in all of them. And the value-add for planners and advisors lies in the way they go about conversing with it.
Successful AI use requires as a minimum, clever algorithms and a seamless connection between the user interface and the technology powering it:
- Front-end development defines how members and trustees interact with and experience the system.
- Dashboards, calculation tools and digital forecasting must be intuitive and useful.
- Back-end architecture refers to the underlying systems that run behind the scenes, responsible for securely storing, processing and retrieving data to ensure the smooth operation of the application.
- AI engineering is important for how decisions flow from data insights and turns it into actionable intelligence.
Over and above this, you need a product owner or full-stack engineer with a broad understanding of the entire technology stack, and works to design, test and implement software applications with the ease of the user' journey in mind.
Don't reinvent the AI wheel, start partnering for the future
The future of financial planning is being shaped today by the evolution of AI and smartly applying it to integrate everything from Employee Benefits and Wellness to Financial Planning.
It is a new way of thinking. As a firm, we have been on this road for some time. Yes, in a fast-changing world, we continue to learn every day, but we refuse to be complacent or settle for a limited understanding.
If you do not want to miss the opportunities AI offers, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Partner with firms that are already ahead on the journey and ready to help you move forward.