
Your firm adopted AI months ago. Nobody decided to
Why most UK advice firms are already using AI without a decision being made, what the FCA expects of that position today, and how to find out in a week.
AI, compliance and regulated professional services

Why most UK advice firms are already using AI without a decision being made, what the FCA expects of that position today, and how to find out in a week.

An allegorical telling of an ineffective action: evenings and weekends, a fictional client, genuine amazement, and every session ending with the same sentence. The story explores how an adviser can spend months testing a consumer product against properties it was never architecturally designed to have—until disappointment hardens into the conclusion that “we cannot use AI.” But the truth is narrower, and more useful: nothing has yet been built to your requirements.

BP's safety numbers improved while its maintenance fell behind. Advice firms have the same measurement problem, and clients now arrive with chatbot printouts.

For ninety years, maps of Africa showed a mountain range that was never there. Adviser marketing repeats the same mistake, and it costs more than it looks.

Silent errors in financial software: plausible numbers that pass validation, then surface as fee errors or breaches. Fidelity Magellan, Fannie Mae, the London Whale.