If you’ve been paying attention to investment markets over the last couple of years, you’ll already know that AI is one of the most significant forces reshaping the global economy. The returns from semiconductor companies, cloud infrastructure, and the businesses building and running AI systems have been remarkable — and the broader implications are only just beginning to play out.
The Intelligence Question
By Peter Brooke
This article is published on: 16th June 2026
I was in London recently for an industry conference, and the keynote session on AI was arguably the most discussed moment of the whole event. Not because the topic was new to anyone in the room — we’ve all been watching this unfold — but because of how quickly it’s now moving inside financial planning firms specifically. The framing that stuck with me: this isn’t just another software upgrade. It’s closer to an industrial revolution. The shift from paper-based advice to digital systems in the 1990s took a decade. What’s happening now is moving at a fraction of that pace.
I came away thinking a lot about what this means for how I work — and for you.
“Technology won’t replace advisers — but advisers who use technology will replace those who don’t.“
The most important point first
Before I get into the practical detail, I want to make something clear, because I think it’s the most important idea in this whole conversation.
AI is extraordinarily capable at processing information, finding patterns, drafting content, and summarising complexity.
But it lacks something that turns out to be rather crucial: judgement.
Here’s a simple example. If you ask ChatGPT, “I need to go to the car wash — it’s 200 metres away. Should I walk or drive?”, it will very sensibly tell you to walk. It’s close, after all. What it misses, of course, is that the entire point of going to the car wash is to wash the car. That’s not a failure of intelligence. It’s a failure of context, of understanding the bigger picture, of asking the right question in the first place.
That’s what human advisers do. Not just answer the question in front of us — but understand why you’re asking it, what’s really going on underneath it, and what the right question actually is.
What this looks like for me
I’ve been using AI tools actively for some time now, and recently completed an AI bootcamp with my productivity coach— deliberately, and with a specific intention.
My clients shouldn’t have to worry about keeping up with all of this (unless they want to); That’s my job. The more fluent I am in how these tools actually work, the better placed I am to use them well to benefit us all, and to recognise where the limits are.
Here’s what it actually changes — and what it doesn’t.
One of the most practical shifts is in how I handle meeting notes. If we speak by video call, I record and transcribe the conversation using a secure, multi-factor authenticated application. This means I can be fully present and listening, rather than split between the conversation and a notepad. Afterwards, the transcription lets me extract the key points accurately — compliance notes, commitments I’ve made to you, things you’ve agreed to send me, follow-up tasks from switches, withdrawals, or other issues we’ve discussed. That all goes into my task management system so nothing gets missed or delayed. The recording itself is deleted from the app immediately once I’ve taken what I need.
If we’re meeting face to face, I’ll simply ask your permission to record it, in the same way as for a video meeting and for the same reasons — in my experience, most people are very comfortable with it once they understand why.
Beyond meeting notes
AI is also helping me with research, drafting communications, analysing documents, and building better workflows across my business. The goal is that you should start to notice an improvement in follow-up — things like investment switches, withdrawal requests, or outstanding actions getting picked up more reliably and more quickly. Less ‘falling through the cracks’. The real goal is higher quality time on the things that actually matter — thinking through your situation properly, having the conversations that need to happen, and ideally spending more of that time with you face to face rather than behind my desk.
If you’re one of my existing clients and not already using the CashCalc Client Portal for document sharing and secure messaging, do get in touch and I’ll set you up. It’s a much safer option than email for anything sensitive, and is straightforward to use. See the short explainer video below if you haven’t seen it. And if you’ve ever wanted to book a call without the back-and-forth of scheduling, Calendly has been running quietly in the background for a while now — it’s saved all of us rather a lot of emails.
A word on security
I want to say something here without alarming you unnecessarily, because the picture is genuinely nuanced.
Email is convenient, and we all use it constantly. But it is also the most common point of vulnerability when fraud occurs. As AI tools become more sophisticated, so do the people misusing them.
At Spectrum, we’ve updated our processes accordingly. Any withdrawal or surrender request that arrives by email, I will always speak to you directly — by video call — before anything moves forward. No exceptions. In some cases, particularly if a new bank account is involved, I will also ask you to show me a bank statement, either by holding it up to the camera or screen-sharing. It sounds simple, because it is — but that kind of direct human verification is exactly what stops fraud in its tracks.
On that note: AI can now be used to create convincing video overlays in real time. If you ever receive a video call from someone claiming to be me and something feels off, ask them to wave their hand in front of their face. It breaks the overlay. I’ll always do it happily. If someone won’t — end the call.
Looking forward with judgement
“42” but what’s the question?
In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a vast supercomputer called Deep Thought is asked to find the answer to ‘life, the universe, and everything’. After millions of years of calculation, it delivers its answer: 42.
The problem, it turns out, is that nobody had thought to ask for the question.
They then had to build another supercomputer — the Earth — just to work out what the question was supposed to be.
In a roundabout way, this is a fairly good description of where we are with AI right now.
One of my AI bootcamp coaches put it well recently: we’re moving from a knowledge economy to a judgement economy. Every answer is now theoretically available to everyone. What remains scarce — and genuinely valuable — is the ability to know which question to ask, to understand context, to see the bigger picture, and to make a call when the situation doesn’t fit neatly into any formula.
That’s what twenty-plus years of working with clients in France, navigating genuinely complex financial and tax environments, actually builds. AI will help me do more with that experience.
It won’t replace me.
I find this genuinely exciting. I hope you do too, and if you don’t I am here to help.