AI financial advice hits the US

On 9 September 2025, with little fanfare, a small company in San Francisco launched what it claims to be the “first AI financial advisor regulated by the SEC”. For those unfamiliar, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is the US equivalent of the UK’s FCA, making this a significant milestone. But what does this look like, and is it coming to the UK?

First impressions matter, and the website is quite basic. It doesn’t inspire confidence to entrust your life savings to it. However, beyond the surface, it offers typical financial planning models, focusing on investing and forecasting, while also addressing short-term needs like budgeting, paying off credit cards and managing personal spending by linking to your bank accounts. It provides daily market briefings relevant to your portfolio, a weekly recap of your financial movements and is available 24/7 to answer any complex questions or simply let you know if you can afford to dine out!

Just like in the real world (or is AI the new real world?), the more information you provide, the more accurate the outcome. Recently, I’ve spent 15 minutes a week getting ChatGPT to ask me personal questions so that when I ask it questions, it gives better outcomes. It really does make a difference.

Thankfully, it now knows I support City and not United, what I like, and even what’s going on in my life. Just last week, I asked: “Where is the best local place to purchase some plastic boxes?” Amazingly, due to its knowledge of me, it responded: “Are these boxes to help Ella (my daughter) move her belongings to university?” It then advised not only where to get the boxes but also how much a typical student takes to university and the number and size of boxes I should consider. That said, my wife had already figured it out and packed everything, which was thankfully a lot less than ChatGPT had predicted. Even with all this technology, I’m still pretty confident my wife knows best!

Anyway, I digress. The point is, to get the best initial outcome, it’s key to provide detailed information. As we always tell clients when creating their Voyant Financial Life Plan, we follow the premise of GIGO – garbage in, garbage out!

So now that the AI advisor knows everything about your current situation and your goals and aspirations, how does this translate into giving regulated advice on complex investment products and investments?

Amazingly, just like humans, it sat the Certified Financial Planners exam, which in the US is the industry standard for human financial advisers. Certain conditions were followed to ensure consistency with humans, including identical exam sets, randomised question orders and no access to retrieval tools to ensure the answers were based on reasoning ability and not just memory. As a further benchmark, Origin also pitted itself against not only humans but other models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude. Unsurprisingly, given that this data is highlighted on the homepage, Origin topped the table with a score of 96.5%, compared to the human average score of 79.5% and 91.2% from the alternative models.

So how close is the UK to having a fully regulated AI advisor? Technologically, it is very close, but practically, it is still in the assessment and guidance phase. We may see the first AI advisor regulated in the next 1-3 years. However, this is based on research by CoPilot, so it may be biased!

For now, we will have to wait and see. Recently, a friend of mine told me about a chat his wife had with ChatGPT, asking: “Can I retire at 60 if I have a third child?” The answer, to his dismay, was: “Yes“. While the numbers may stack up financially, the emotional ups and downs of years of sleep deprivation, social hibernation and lifestyle compromises are something only a human can truly appreciate.

This newsletter is intended as an information piece and does not constitute investment advice.

If you have any further questions and want to speak to a human financial planner, please don’t hesitate to contact us. If you’re a client, you can reach us on 0161 486 2250 or by getting in touch with your usual Equilibrium contact. For all new enquiries please call 0161 383 3335.