AI is moving beyond digital novelty and is becoming foundational, like electricity: invisible, yet everywhere. The future is not AI versus humans. It is humans working alongside AI. The most powerful applications will combine human judgement with machine precision, balancing empathy with efficiency and creativity with scale. Decisions on access, ethics and inclusion will shape risk, regulation and long-term value creation. These choices will determine whether AI powers sustainable growth or becomes a missed opportunity (page 22).
For many financial advisors, especially seasoned professionals, the rise of sophisticated AI-powered advice tools has fuelled a deep-seated fear of becoming obsolete. While this anxiety is understandable, the consensus across local industry experts is clear: AI is not a threat to the financial advisor; it is an existential threat to the purely technical advisor.
The future of financial advice is the fiduciary human directing the intelligent machine to deliver a level of service in terms of precision, ethics and emotional support that was impossible before. The ultimate success metric for the next generation of advisors will not be their technical expertise, but their capacity for humanity (page 76).
Rob Macdonald, Independent Consultant, argues that with the explosion of AI, there is a risk that the agency in many aspects of our lives will be in jeopardy. Macdonald quotes John Nosta who says that AI allows us to live in an age of “cognitive abundance”; never has it been so easy to access so much information instantly. However, “Abundance can have a dulling effect. When knowledge is cheap, we can lose the desire to search for it, and in the final analysis, make it our own,” he warns.
Agency is the antidote to the dulling effect. “It’s what turns abundance into opportunity. It’s the skill that keeps us learning actively rather than passively and thinking uniquely generative rather than derivative.” But the real risk of AI is that we forget to use our agency (page 14).
In this edition, we speak to Lelané Bezuidenhout, FPI CEO and award winner of the Noel Maye Award, which represents the pinnacle of global recognition for those making a lasting impact on the profession. In our interview, Bezuidenhout outlines the FPI’s new strategy, Vision 2030. Vision 2030 focuses on people – those who aspire to build better futures. The desire for a better tomorrow is universal (page 18).
On the topic of building a better tomorrow, the FPI Education and Training Trust has been established to grow the financial planning profession by expanding access to high-quality education, training and development for future financial planners. There is no worthier cause than building a better tomorrow for others (page 9).
A heartfelt congratulations to all the laureates that grace this edition of Blue Chip. We speak to the 2025/2026 FPI Financial Planner of the Year, Nicola Langridge (page 62), and the 2025/2026 FPI Approved Professional Practice of the Year, Ascor Independent Wealth Managers (page 64). Congratulations to all the FPI 2025 winners (page 59).
Build a better future for yourself and for others and enjoy the rewards that follow.
Alexis Knipe, Editor
Blue Chip Journal – The official publication of FPI
