Finer research: even the youngest want a real interlocutor
Il Sole 24 Ore | October 2023
I don’t fear artificial intelligence, but my competitors who will be able to use it before and better than me.” The expression was used by a financial advisor in a focus group in preparation for the research that was presented by Finer, by Nicola Ronchetti, at the EFPA Meeting 2023 (the EFPA is a certification body for the training of financial advisors, chaired by Marco Deroma) held in Florence in recent days. And it gives a good idea of how consultants approach the topic of artificial intelligence: with great expectations and with some concerns. But also a certainty, that the “tomorrow” of artificial intelligence is already today.
«It emerges very clearly that artificial intelligence does not replace the relationship between consultant and client, but allows us to provide services with greater added value – explains Ronchetti -. Professionals with large portfolios and private investors are certainly the subjects who are leading the way in the use of artificial intelligence at the moment.” Time and cost management are the elements perceived as most important. «Artificial intelligence will certainly make it possible to speed up all processes – adds Ronchetti -, especially for identifying customer needs, examining enormous quantities of data in a very short time, to offer targeted proposals». According to Ronchetti, artificial intelligence, like all important inventions starting from the wheel, will make everything much faster and will allow great competitive advantages to those who are the first to be able to adopt it also in the financial consultancy sector.
However, for customers and consultants, the future is not something yet to come, it is already now, also because the most important networks and banks in our country are already using AI. And from the Finer analysis it emerges that a good portion of professionals and investors see an impact of AI already in the next two or three years, even if the majority is more convinced that this will more likely happen in the next 5-10 years.
The research has therefore identified professionals with larger portfolios, investors under 30 and private/Hnwi (High Net Worth Individual) investors as trend setters. These are also the subjects who know artificial intelligence best, in a context in which the percentage between professionals and clients is around 15 percent. While professionals use artificial intelligence mainly for general research, investors also look for data relating to financial investments with some attention. Indeed, it is the most popular item for end investors and their private/Hnwi component. While under 30s use it mainly to generate texts.
The good news for professionals is that even the youngest, those under 30 in 59 percent of cases want to deal with a real consultant. «The idea of the avatar managing relationships with the customer – explains Ronchetti – is certainly something that doesn’t even attract young people». Indeed, one of the biggest problems linked to artificial intelligence is precisely that of the depersonalization of relationships, both for professionals and for customers in general. For those under 30 this problem exists, but the risk of standardization of the offer is seen as a greater risk.
Antonio Criscione