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Is Disintermediation Day coming?

ended 26. September 2025

How AI will impact generic (vanilla) financial advice (mortgages/pensions/investments, etc) is an ongoing topic in the financial news media. For example, will it disintermediate those who provide advice and enable similar outcomes for consumers for zero cost? Keen to hear from AI experts ONLY on what their thoughts are. How far are we truly off AI removing the need to speak to an adviser to get investment guidance, take out an insurance policy or provide mortgage advice, etc? Are we talking months (unlikely) or is it still 3-5-10 years away? What are the risks currently of relying on AI to act as your ‘adviser’ and do research for you? Ultimately, are we headed inexorably to ‘Disintermediation Day’ or is that a myth that may never happen?  

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Mitali Deypurkaystha
AI Governance Strategist & CMO at AISensa
Disintermediation Day for knowledge-first financial advisers is coming. Think Judgment Day, but instead of Terminators it’s algorithms, which are cold, fast and unstoppable. If certain financial data stays locked behind gates, advisers will stay relevant for longer. But if data is opened up, just one ambitious technologist can build a universal model to crunch financial data faster, cheaper and more accurately than any human. Knowledge-first advisers risk irrelevance within a year. In the AI era, simply having knowledge as an adviser won't be enough. The battle in financial services moving forward won't be won on hard knowledge but on “soft skills”. Long dismissed as feminine, nice-to-haves, soft skills, namely empathy, trust and connection, are the hardest for AI to copy. Meanwhile, the “hard skills” of raw data and knowledge will be effortlessly ingested, replicated and surpassed. Soft is the new hard. The future won’t belong to those who know the most, but those who care the most.
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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
Time for a reality check. Within financial advice, AI will automate the chores, not substitute the counsel for years to come. Andrew Lo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently said the capability for Large Language Models to make real financial decisions is still five years away, with fiduciary duty the biggest challenge. The only advisers AI will truly replace are the ones who don't learn how to use it. Meanwhile, in a report on generative AI for retail investment advice last year, Deloitte said generative AI will become the primary source of limited-scope advice by 2027. This simply means AI will handle the glorified calculator work. Major FS firms are focusing on augmentation, not replacement. Last year, Morgan Stanley said 98% of its teams actively use an internal AI chatbot because it provides faster data retrieval and summarisation of research reports, streamlining advisers' workflows. For now at least, AI is about supporting advisers, not replacing them. So relax.