Are clients flipping the script with AI?

By David Wismer

For most of our lives, the usual adviser-client conversation followed a familiar pattern. The client brought questions and concerns. The financial adviser brought expertise in extensive qualitative and quantitative discovery—and a planning process designed to deliver answers.

Artificial intelligence may be starting to flip that script.

Imagine a client walking into their adviser’s office and saying, “I ran my financial plan and portfolio through ChatGPT, and it came back with a few recommendations that are different from yours. Can we talk about them?”

Whether you are an adviser or a client, you may not have encountered that scenario yet, but I would not be surprised if you eventually do.

AI has entered the meeting

The wealth-management industry is not waiting around to see what AI can do. Large firms are already using it to prepare for meetings, summarize client information, generate follow-up tasks, analyze portfolios, and streamline research and operations.

Bank of America, for example, says an AI-powered meeting system it rolled out to its advisers can save up to four hours per client meeting. Rogo Technologies, a start-up launched in 2021, has garnered widespread attention and gained traction among large financial institutions with its AI-based financial applications.

And the tools are moving closer to the adviser’s desk. For example, Anthropic has recently introduced Claude for Financial Advisors, which is designed to connect with platforms used across wealth management for tasks such as meeting preparation, portfolio reviews, and follow-up.

Advisers are mostly embracing the change. In a 2026 survey conducted by Morning Consult for Edward Jones, 69% of financial advisers said AI has had a positive impact on the industry, while 53% viewed it as an opportunity to spend more time on higher-value client work.

But there is another side to this story: Clients have AI too.

In the same survey, 38% of advisers said clients are already comparing professional advice with information they receive online or from AI tools. And a New York Life survey released this month found that among Americans who had sought financial guidance from AI, 23% acted on it without first seeking additional validation. The survey also found that 40% of Gen Z adults said the availability of AI actually increased their need for a human financial professional.

That is a finding worthy of everyone’s attention.

A challenge—or an opening?

If a client brings an AI-generated “second opinion” into a meeting, an adviser could understandably feel challenged. A 2026 study published in Computers in Human Behavior found that professionals can react negatively when clients seek a second opinion from AI, even when AI is used only as a supplemental resource.

That reaction may be exactly what advisers want to avoid.

I reached out to several top advisers we have interviewed for Proactive Advisor Magazine to ask how they might react in this scenario.

One surprised me with a response that even he admitted was pretty “snarky”—in effect: “You get what you pay for.”

The others offered variations on the same calm, reasoned response—something along the lines of, “Good. Let’s look at it together and examine the validity of the conclusions.”

One adviser said he had faced this exact situation. How he described it was interesting:

“The response from the LLM [large language model] was to provide ‘14 critical questions to be answered before any action is to be taken.’ Upon examination, the first two questions were relevant and topical; we added clarification. The remaining 12 questions were based on AI ‘hallucination.’” 

Many mentioned that AI may be right about some things. It may be wrong. More likely, it may be working with incomplete or inaccurate information.

But beyond that, a financial plan is not simply a collection of numbers. It reflects tax implications, family circumstances, cash-flow needs, risk tolerance, time horizons, estate considerations, behavioral tendencies, and goals that may have taken an adviser several meetings over months to fully understand. Those factors can also change as the client’s life and financial circumstances evolve.

If the client did not give AI all of that detailed context—or did not know what context mattered—the answer may be technically plausible but personally inappropriate.

The adviser’s value is not diminished by having another source of information in the room. It is demonstrated by placing that information in the context of the client’s full financial life.

I like the approach described by Meghaan Lurtz, an expert on the psychology of financial planning. Rather than becoming defensive, thank the client for bringing the information in, listen to what caught their attention, work through the findings together, and collaborate on the next step. She offers examples of several real-time prompts, including, “Thank you for doing this research. It tells me you’re thinking deeply about your plan, and that’s a good thing.”

The bigger point is that a client who asks questions is engaging with their adviser.

The one who quietly acts without their adviser may be more concerning.

What about 401(k)s and other workplace retirement plans?

This discussion is particularly relevant to workplace retirement plans.

For many advisers, a client’s workplace retirement plan has traditionally fallen outside the main advisory relationship. The adviser may manage the client’s taxable account and IRA, build the financial plan, and discuss retirement goals—while a significant 401(k) balance remains in a limited menu of plan investment options with relatively little ongoing strategic attention.

Now imagine that same client asking AI to analyze their 401(k) allocations.

That does not have to be a threat. It could be the beginning of a better conversation about whether the client has access to a self-directed brokerage account (SDBA), which can allow an adviser to extend professional management to assets held within the workplace retirement plan.

That is one of many reasons Flexible Plan Investments (FPI) offers FlexPlan Strategic, a dynamically risk-managed investment strategy available through qualifying SDBAs. FlexPlan Strategic allocates among five actively managed Quantified Funds, with risk management applied within the funds and at the strategy level. It reallocates quarterly in response to evolving market conditions.

The key point is that participants in 401(k)s and other voluntary retirement plans are often expected to manage their own investment portfolios with limited personal investment knowledge and a standardized menu of options. Behavioral biases may also influence their decisions. The support available to them may fall far short of the professional guidance needed to make important investment decisions year after year.

While some clients may increasingly turn to AI for help making those decisions, advisers can provide another option: a turnkey strategy built on a research-based approach with active risk management that can be tailored to each client’s risk profile.

As with the broader theme of this article, AI may, ironically, be “flipping the script”—in this case, by building a bridge to greater client engagement.

The advisers who benefit most may be those who are comfortable reading from the new script.

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Note: If you are a financial adviser, please reach out to your FPI regional business consultant to learn more about the benefits and convenient implementation of FPI’s SDBA offerings. If you are an investor client, contact your financial adviser to learn how this investment option—with its institutional-grade investment approach, active risk management, and broad diversification—may fit your long-term financial goals.