As the world continues to advance at a breakneck pace, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) across industries is inevitable. For financial advisors, AI represents both a challenge and an unprecedented opportunity. This article, from the perspective of a neuroscience-based executive coach, explores the significant impacts of AI on the profession, the unique advantages it offers as well as the critical and urgent necessity to embrace this technology. But read to the end, for there is a giant and poorly recognised risk with AI that exposes us to substantial collective peril. Fortunately, there is a meaningful way to mitigate this risk.
Will AI take your job?
As I started to draft this paper, I asked ChatGPT 4.0 a question:
“I have a client nearing retirement who hasn’t saved enough. How can I support him to change his investing behaviour in his final earning years?”
After 40 years of working with human beings and their brains, I was hard-pressed to improve on the advice offered by Dr Adrian Cole, the world’s first AI-powered, virtual neurocentric coach. In less than 10 seconds, he gave me a comprehensive page of suggestions sanctioning me to understand my client’s beliefs and fears about money, empowering me to change his behaviour. Dr Cole provided detailed recommendations for how I could help my client explore, expose and address his dangerous underlying neuropsychology. He concluded by proposing three specific actions and suggested I return for more guidance once these were achieved.
So, if you’re a financial advisor asking the question, “Will AI take my job?” the short answer is, “Yes.”
The full answer is a bit more complicated. AI-based trading has demonstrated superiority over human-based trading, thanks to its ability to process vast amounts of data, identify trends and execute trades with precision and speed. However, the role of financial advisors extends beyond data analysis and trade execution.
Advisors serve as the crucial interface between the objective world of financial markets and the subjective experiences of clients, providing personalised services that include deep psychological evaluations and tailored advice.
Much like financial advisors, I initially believed AI could never replicate the trust, careful inquiry and deep understanding of human psychology required in my profession. Proving myself wrong, I have now developed three custom AI-based virtual coaches (including Custom GPT, Dr Adrian Cole, who is trained in my own unique neuroscience-based methodologies and more) that deliver personalised, insightful guidance 24/7, demonstrating that AI can fulfil roles traditionally thought to require a human touch.
You can similarly embrace AI to enhance your services and stay relevant. Those who fail to integrate AI risk falling behind as clients seek the enhanced precision, speed and availability offered by AI-driven services.
How can AI save your job?
AI can revolutionise financial advising by providing deeper insights into clients’ beliefs, fears and behaviours. Consider these future scenarios:
- Behavioural analysis and insights. AI analyses vast amounts of client data, including transaction histories and communication patterns, identifying spending habits, risk tolerance and investment behaviour. Sentiment analysis detects emotional cues from client emails, revealing underlying beliefs and fears.
- Personalised client profiles. AI develops detailed psychographic profiles by integrating demographic data with behavioural insights, helping you tailor communication and advice to match your clients’ personalities and financial goals. Predictive analytics forecast client behaviours, allowing for proactive addressing of concerns and prevention of impulsive financial decisions.
- Enhanced communication and engagement. Natural Language Processing enables AI to respond to client queries in a humanlike manner. Chatbots and virtual assistants handle routine inquiries, allowing you to focus on complex needs. Emotional AI recognises and responds to clients’ emotional states, building stronger relationships and addressing concerns empathetically.
- Behavioural nudging and recommendations. AI sends personalised nudges to clients, encouraging positive financial behaviour such as regular saving and timely portfolio reviews. AI-powered tools create customised financial scenarios to help clients understand the potential outcomes of different investment strategies, fostering informed decision-making.
- Continuous learning and adaptation. AI systems continuously learn from new data, refining their understanding of clients over time. Further, AI collects and analyses feedback from client interactions to enhance advisory services. This ongoing adaptation ensures advice remains relevant and effective.
Most advisors will wait for large-platform technology to be developed before enjoying these benefits, but I hope a few courageous entrepreneurs will pioneer financial AI technology before then. Regardless, those who keep themselves informed will adopt, adapt, compete and survive best. Current tools are remarkably easy to master and as an applied neuroscientist, I assure you that old dogs can indeed learn new tricks!
What is AI’s huge risk?
Despite these massive steps forward, AI’s capacity to outperform human intelligence poses a substantial threat… if we do not master our natural intelligence first.
Simple AI, like social media algorithms, already exploits our neurobiological vulnerabilities, leading to impaired decision-making, reduced impulse control and poor emotional regulation. If these simple algorithms can have such a profound impact, imagine the risks posed by more powerful AI systems. Even AI pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton offer strident warnings about our inability to control superintelligent AI.

We must all urgently learn to master our own brains, cultivating self-awareness, emotional regulation and cognitive control, before we risk being collectively hijacked by an intelligence whose ultimate power will be greater than anything we have ever imagined.
Conclusion
The time to act is now. AI is here. Advisors who delay integrating AI into their practice will be left behind in an increasingly automated world. By mastering your natural intelligence and embracing AI, you will secure your personal and professional future.
About Dr Roddy Carter, MD, has guided and built international leaders and Olympic champions across his 40 years of professional contribution. At the height of his career, and facing deep personal tragedy, Dr Carter experienced a profound personal awakening. Applying his expertise in performance neuroscience, he identified that stress-induced psycho-protective brain adaptations, while ensuring short-term survival, often limit potential and cause hidden distress. Now, as an executive coach and author, he dedicates his unique approach to helping others unlock their full potential through compassionate neuroscience and personal mastery. |
