AI isn’t the end of mortgage advisers – it’s about empowerment
While AI is coming for mortgage advice, the real question is whether the industry is leading it or reacting to it.
Thursday, February 26th 2026, 9:03AM
Every financial adviser mySolutions chief executive and director Kevin Smee has spoken to knows AI is changing the game.
However, he says few advisers feel clear on where it can be safely implemented, where it shouldn’t be used, how to protect client confidentiality, how to stack the right tools together and how to stay within FAP and regulatory boundaries.
“The opportunity is enormous, but so are the risks if it’s done poorly,” Smee says.
“AI isn’t about replacing mortgage advisers; it’s about empowering great advisers to replicate themselves responsibly.”
SBS Wealth chief client officer Dennis Edel says AI isn’t replacing advisers. It’s replacing gatekeepers.
For years, the financial services industry has operated on a “gate-keeper adviser” model, requiring clients to meet with someone, navigate a process, and only then gain access to a product.
This approach made sense when information was scarce, but today it only adds unnecessary friction, Edel says.
“AI is now taking over gate-keeper functions more effectively than traditional roles ever could by explaining products clearly, comparing options consistently, guiding clients through compliance, documenting everything in real time and removing delays and managing bookings.
Edel says if an adviser’s role primarily involves guiding people through a process, AI is likely to replace it.
“This shift is not due to AI's superiority, but because the traditional process was never real advice. Clients are seeking clarity, confidence and control. AI provides all three without any waiting time.”
Smee says adviser businesses are swamped with paperwork. “It is the one thing hurting advisers. They are spending too much time on it and not enough time seeing clients. They need to be able to free themselves up and spend more time in client meetings.”
One of the biggest adviser complaints is they can’t take on more clients because of the time taken in writing statements of advice, file notes and attending to compliance. It is often their biggest weakness. By using AI, they can turn that weakness into their biggest strength. It's a plus, he says.
His business, which primarily runs education for advisers, has put together a Partners Life co-sponsored programme to help FAPs or anyone running a financial advice business understand how AI is impacting them and how to integrate it into their business.
It is one the first education companies offering a comprehensive AI integration course specifically for advisers. Three pilot programmes were run successfully last year leading to the 12 month course.
The programme covers Ai governance and compliance boundaries, safe handling of client data, tool stacking across advice workflows, productivity automation (without losing personal advice quality) and strategic positioning in an AI-enabled market.
It is led by Shaun Clarke a former senior Airforce commodore and combat pilot, now a strategy and leadership adviser to corporates navigating complex change. Smee says he helps organisations think clearly under pressure and implement with precision.
About 30-20 people with their laptops attend each of the quarterly day-long sessions for hands-on instruction, using Marloo, an industry specific AI tool written for financial advisers, in how to use AI to compress administration tasks that typically take advisers three to four hours down to five minutes. Each class stays together throughout the course.
Those taking the $1,200 course range from advisers who have been heavily involved with AI over the past couple of years building bots to beginners. “The main benefit is speeding up advisers’ admin tasks to save about 15 hours a week,” Smee says.
More than 95% of advisers are not using AI to its limit for even simple tasks, for example being able to write letters and emails in a quarter of the time it would normally take. “The tools to do it are not that expensive. They buy back time and help advisers concentrate on more meaningful work.
“Clients don't care about compliance and how advisers write documents. They just care about having the mortgage.”
Smee says AI will replace advisers who don’t adopt it. Paperwork is going to be done by technology and there is no avoiding it, but if advisers don’t integrate AI properly into their business they are going to end up with a crack in their system at some stage.
How far AI will go in the advice business nobody knows, Smee says. “We don’t have all the answers and never will, but advisers need to stay relevant and be able to respond fast and not react.”
“If advisers get this right, we don’t shrink. We can grow the market, improve advice quality, increase access, save significant time, and protect the integrity of our profession. AI isn’t something to fear. It’s something to lead.”
Edel says with AI backing them up, expert advisers will become more valuable, not less.
“Those who offer judgment, behavioural coaching, and strategic insight will thrive. AI will eliminate administrative tasks, form-filling, and repetitive scripts, allowing humans to focus on what only they can do.”
He says AI isn’t the end of advice; it’s the end of making clients jump through hoops to receive it.
The industry is rapidly transitioning from “required advice” to “valued advice. The successful players will automate gatekeeping and elevate expert advisers.
“What could we see as an industry? Advisers will be able to see and spend more time with clients. Spend more time uncovering needs and fulfilling them. Advisers would be able to offer advice to more people in need, at a time and place that suits them.”
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