Let me respond to this question with an illustration that I read recently:
On paper, a doorman gets paid to open a door. An automatic door does it cheaper, faster, and never needs to take a lunch break.
If we only measure the task, it's obvious that we don't need doormen in 2025!
But the doorman also screens for sketchy people; recommends the best nearby latte; carries a bag when needed; signals status; nudges people to behave just a little better.
Rory Sutherland (Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity) calls this the doorman fallacy, i.e., mistaking the visible task for the full value.
When we choose the "automatic" AI version, we may make the same mistake without proper perspective.
AI can certainly mimic the tasks of designing and writing financial plans, coming up with and rebalancing accounts, finding a person's retirement "number," or respond to a myriad of questions with financial-calculator-like precision.
However, the best financial planners don't just calculate stuff and write robotic words to live by. They navigate emotions, particularly when the worst of life's experiences are thrown at people. They soothe clients, interpret ambiguity, reading the room, helping to provide perspective, realism and confidence.
Think about the difference between automated phone response systems that require human callers to conform their questions to a preset maze of service options before the relief of getting through to a human operator who can actually help.
Being a creative life-centered planner means making connections between inputs that aren't always logically aligned. Sometimes it can be downright inefficient, yet a necessary price to make sense of life's messiness in a true no-judgment zone.
Cut the human, and you might miss out on value that can be difficult to quantify. Yes, AI can execute tasks. But humans see the less logical glimmers of opportunity and motivation that machines often miss.
For further reading on the intentional development of AI systems:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/false-intention-economy-how-ai-systems-replacing-b%C3%A1rtfai-walcott-4vxuc/?trackingId=UlN7ZO1yTQWsn%2FSTPPXIwQ%3D%3D
You decide, will AI replace financial planners?
Cheers,
Dave Jordan
Financial Life Planner
