Accenture survey shows a growing degree of trust for an AI advisor, but that may not be a threat to traditional advisors
Canadians are open to AI assistance in their financial lives. That’s the core takeaway of a survey of 1,000 Canadians conducted by Accenture. 63 per cent of respondents said they would use an AI assistant in their banking app to answer questions about their financial lives and act on their behalf to fill mortgage applications or move idle cash. 47 per cent said they would use AI to help with non-banking financial tasks and one third of respondents said they might change their financial service provider to one that offers an AI assistant. Perhaps most notably, 60 per cent of respondents are open to a financial assistant from outside their main banking app.
Piyush Bhatnagar sees this as just the start of a trend towards AI adoption and demand by Canadians in the way they engage with financial services. Bhatnagar, Financial Services Lead at Accenture Canada, explained that advisors who engage with AI and follow their customers’ openness to AI assistance can create more efficiencies, free up time, and establish themselves as trusted partners to clients who want an AI assistant but still want humans at the wheel.
“A very clear point of the research is that many people are not open to the AI giving them decisions. They’re open to the AI giving them advice, but they still want to be human in the lead, human in the loop making the final decision,” Bhatnagar says. “But people are very open to AI advice. Individuals find navigating the financial world very difficult, and that openness to advice is about the capability of AI to explain what’s going on.”
As a tool for financial advisors and their clients, Bhatnagar explains that the foremost utility of AI lies in its capacity to digest, analyze, and synthesize a significant amount of complex information into digestible units. That shift from manual research to instant insight has occurred already, and is widely available through many AI tools. What’s coming next, though, are those AI assistants for financial lives.
Bhatnagar sees three categories of new AI tools being rolled out. The first are coming from the big banks and other financial institutions, fed by their wealth of client and market data. Those tools may be slow in coming as larger institutions are bound by legacy systems, but they also come with trusted brand associations. The second category of tools Bhatnagar sees are coming from digital “disruptors.” Players with no legacy, and little established foothold in the market, capable of moving fast to fill emerging niches. The final category comes from ‘vibe coders,’ the countless ordinary people using AI to build apps and programs that can assist in their day to day lives.
Just as these tools continue to be built and rolled out, Canadians’ openness to AI doesn’t imply an innate trust in everything an AI generates. 78 per cent of respondents want to approve each action an AI assistant would take. Bhatnagar believes that contemporary trust in AI stems from the intent behind its use and the position of its users. More established individuals with lower risk tolerances may trust some of the research that AI provides, but with caveats. Individuals with less to lose, or more focused on potential for gains, may trust AI advice more openly as they seek any means of advantage in the market.
Because of that innate dynamic of openness to AI assistance, preference for human control, and differentiated trust, Bhatnagar doesn’t see AI tools as an innate threat to advisors’ livelihoods. Instead, he sees it as an enhancement. If advisors can use AI assistants to answer clients’ simple questions, perform simple functions, and free up time for the complicated stuff, they can end up in a situation of deeper service and understanding.
To make sure they’re ready for tools as they roll out, Bhatnagar recommends constant education on the direction of AI. He believes the established tools for the industry will be rolled out very quickly and that when they come, advisors must be prepared to use them.
“I would suggest to advisors that should also understand what their customers are expecting of them, especially depending on the cohort that they’re servicing,” Bhatnagar says. “Some will expect that they have these tools because that they will equate that to better advice, that it’s more data driven and they’re able to validate the advice in a way that is verified to them. And so I think customer expectations on usage will get to the point where it’s not going to be optional.”
