AI is already reshaping customer experience in UK wealth and pensions. It’s showing up in how members make decisions, how firms support them and how accountability is managed in regulated environments. Leaders aren’t debating whether to use it. They’re working through where it improves outcomes and where it creates new risks.
We recently hosted a private dinner with senior leaders across UK wealth, workplace pensions and advice to talk about what’s changing. The discussion stayed well away from AI theatre. It centred on the tension points firms are dealing with now, from how engagement is measured to what happens to trust when AI becomes part of regulated journeys.
The pressure on UK wealth and pensions firms
Many consumers still struggle to access financial advice. The FCA estimates that around 23 million people in the UK are underserved by traditional advice and guidance. Responsibility for retirement decisions continues to shift towards individuals.
At the same time, customers are becoming more comfortable using AI tools in everyday life, which changes how they search for information and judge providers. Firms are having to respond to that shift quickly and carefully
What does healthy engagement look like in UK wealth and pensions?
One of the liveliest discussions focused on what “healthy engagement” really means in UK wealth and pensions. For years, firms have treated logins and portal activity as a proxy for interest. But several leaders questioned that assumption. Frequent pension checking can signal confidence. It can also signal anxiety. The behaviour alone doesn’t tell you whether someone feels informed or overwhelmed.
This distinction is reflected in wider research. The Department for Work & Pensions and Ipsos note that engagement spans cognitive, emotional and behavioural components. Logging in is behavioural. Understanding your pension and feeling in control are different dimensions. Activity alone does not automatically translate into better outcomes. In that context, measuring engagement purely through frequency risks mistaking noise for progress.
How AI is changing engagement in UK wealth and pensions
AI changes the opportunity. Used well, it allows firms to tailor support around key decisions, like contribution changes, consolidation and retirement timing, rather than pushing generic prompts. Gamification and micro-interventions were discussed as tools to support long-term behaviour change, but only when anchored to real-life progress.
There was also recognition that many workplace pension providers inherit members rather than win them. If the customer did not actively choose you, the relationship has to be earned after the sale. As one attendee put it: “It’s not how you get AI to people. It’s how you get people to you through AI.” As AI tools increasingly mediate discovery, structured, clear content becomes part of acquisition strategy as much as servicing.
Why is financial wellbeing becoming central to UK wealth and pensions providers?
Leaders repeatedly came back to the same tension. Information alone does not shift outcomes. A product, a portal and an annual statement may provide access, but they rarely change behaviour on their own.
Engagement tends to stick when a pension proposition is wrapped with services that help people decide and act. That is especially true at retirement and in the early years of drawdown, where customers need ongoing guidance and optimisation rather than a one-off transaction.
Workplace members are increasingly expecting financial wellbeing support alongside their pension, often in a mobile-first experience. Done well, this shifts the role of the app. It becomes somewhere people return to for reassurance and clarity, not just to check a balance once a year. Leaders referenced goal-based planning tools, retirement readiness checks, guided journeys and coaching models as examples of where firms are testing this approach.
The latest MaPS MoneyView data reinforces the gap between access and confidence. 50% of UK adults say they have no clear plan for their retirement finances. 46% do not feel confident managing their money.
How AI can support a sense of financial safety
Used carefully, AI can simplify complex choices, personalise next steps and surface relevant prompts at the right moment. Several attendees described experimenting with “coach” or “analyst” patterns that blend digital support with a deliberate human backstop, particularly in regulated moments where trust and accountability remain critical.
What role does human accountability play in AI-enabled wealth and pensions journeys?
Multiple leaders observed a clear behavioural difference between how customers show up to people versus AI. Customers can feel less embarrassment discussing past decisions or financial uncertainty with an AI interface than with a human adviser. That creates an opportunity for AI to act as a psychologically safer first step, particularly for clarification, scenario exploration and form-filling.
The room was clear on one point. In higher-stakes moments, retirement decisions, drawdown choices, vulnerability signals or complaints, trust still depends on visible human accountability. This wasn’t framed as resistance to AI. It was framed as pro-governance and pro-customer. AI may facilitate the interaction. Responsibility for the outcome still sits with the firm.
Wider regulatory data backs that up. The Bank of England and FCA report that only 2% of AI use cases in UK financial services involve fully autonomous decision-making. At the same time, 84% of firms report having a formally accountable individual responsible for their AI framework. The direction of travel is clear. AI may support decisions. Ownership does not disappear.
How firms are balancing AI support with human oversight
Across UK wealth and pensions, most AI deployments are still cautious. They sit behind the scenes as copilots or knowledge tools. Even where firms are experimenting with customer-facing AI, oversight tends to be built in from the start. The intention is not autonomy. It’s assistance.
AI can lower barriers to engagement. But trust is engineered, not assumed. The strongest near-term models blend speed with safety, AI for first-line support, with clear escalation and human accountability when the stakes rise.
How can AI help address adviser capacity in UK wealth and pensions?
Adviser capacity came up repeatedly as a constraint. Several leaders pointed to the ageing adviser population and the growing gap between rising consumer need and the industry’s ability to serve it through traditional advice models. The adviser relationship remains a differentiator, particularly in complex retirement decisions. But the model is under strain.
The FCA’s estimate that around 23 million consumers are underserved by traditional advice and guidance makes the scale of that strain clear. Demand for support is rising, but adviser numbers are not keeping pace.
How AI can help scale adviser impact without replacing judgement
AI was discussed as a way to protect the human premium by removing low-value workload: admin, summarisation, research, meeting preparation and follow-up. The point was not automation for its own sake. It was about creating more space for judgement and empathy.
Several leaders stressed that the right balance will differ across segments. What works for mass affluent clients may not translate directly to high net worth or ultra-high net worth relationships. The key is clarity about where AI assists and where human accountability remains central. The opportunity is not to replace advisers. It is to systemise what can be accelerated safely while reinforcing where human judgement matters most.
How could agentic AI reshape distribution and loyalty in wealth and pensions?
Towards the end of the evening, the conversation moved to a more disruptive horizon. Not chatbots or copilots, but agentic interactions. Systems that act on behalf of customers rather than simply respond to prompts.
Digital money management is already mainstream in the UK, as the 2025 Lloyds Consumer Digital Index makes clear. Gartner forecasts suggest agent-based systems will grow rapidly across industries. If digital interfaces are now the norm and agents increasingly sit within them, the shift towards systems that act on behalf of customers rather than simply respond to prompts starts to look less theoretical.
In practical terms, that could mean a personal AI comparing pension products, managing paperwork or moving money between providers. If an agent is constantly optimising for value or suitability, inertia becomes harder to rely on. Providers risk becoming more interchangeable, particularly where propositions look similar.
One comment in the room landed well. The belief that “high touch, high empathy” is an enduring moat may be too comfortable. People are already forming habits around AI tools and, in some cases, being more candid with them than they would be with a human adviser. That shifts where influence and loyalty sit.
How wealth and pensions firms should prepare for an agentic future
If agents increasingly sit between customers and providers, firms will need to think differently about readiness. Structured product data, clear journeys and strong identity and authorisation controls become foundational. Agents can only act on what they can interpret.
There is also a platform question. As agent-based systems develop, dependency on model providers increases. Pricing volatility, resilience and concentration risk move higher up the agenda. Several leaders spoke about actively reducing lock-in and maintaining flexibility in model and infrastructure choices.
Preparing for agent-mediated distribution is about more than predicting immediate disruption. It is about ensuring your proposition can be understood, compared and trusted even when the first interaction is not with you.
What this means for wealth and pensions firms adopting AI
The dinner landed on a clear sense of direction. AI will continue reshaping customer experience in wealth and pensions. That feels established. What does not disappear is the human premium. It becomes more concentrated, sitting firmly around trust and accountability.
As servicing and advice models modernise, responsibility does not move just because technology does. When AI shapes journeys or recommendations, the firm still stands behind the outcome.
The firms that move well from here will modernise carefully. They will scale support where it makes sense and stay deliberate about where judgement sits. And they will build propositions that genuinely help customers act at the moments that matter.
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Meet the author
Simon Hull is Head of Financial Services at CreateFuture. With over 20 years in banking and wealth, including UBS, Barclays, BlackRock and Deutsche Bank, he helps firms turn AI strategy into practical, accountable change.
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