Artificial intelligence, or AI as it's more commonly referred to, is THE topic of conversation at the moment, and rightly so. With the potential to significantly impact many aspects of our daily lives, our Managing Director, Ian Lowes shares his thoughts on how this could change financial advice forever.

The robots are here, and they are changing the world as we know it. Whilst long talked about, AI has arrived and is starting to impact many aspects of our daily lives, often without us knowing about it. What’s also clear is that we’ve seen nothing yet.

One AI product, Chat GPT, from Open AI, has been making headlines recently, as a version has been made freely available for anyone to use. You can access and test it out for yourself via the Open AI website. It uses AI to understand and generate human-like language responses to inputted requests. Ask it to write an essay covering multiple specified points and it will trawl the internet, gather information and produce what’s requested… in seconds. Perhaps more entertaining, ask it to write a song in the style of another, with lyrics referencing specified traits of your pet or a person, and you will be impressed.

It is just one example of how AI is rapidly advancing. AI technologies like ChatGPT have the potential to impact all aspects of everyday life and industries, from healthcare to transportation to finance. Just as the introduction of internet search engines such as Google meant hardbacked encyclopedias became redundant, AI will replace search engines before too long. It will become embedded and affect the way in which we live and work.

However, whilst first impressions of the likes of ChatGPT are very impressive, on closer examination it has been found to be seriously flawed, outputting answers that seem authoritative but can be dangerously incorrect and, in some instances, it would appear, made up. So not so intelligent after all.

The ChatGPT software is currently on version 4 and it will inevitably improve, and it has its rivals also. But instances where some AI is arguably fake, demonstrates the risk of becoming too reliant on its capabilities, too soon. Additionally, there are serious concerns about becoming too reliant on it at all. Well known tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk has expressed grave concerns about AI, suggesting it has both positive and negative aspects. He has gone one step further to suggest it could be one of the biggest threats to human civilization. But whether we like it or not, the AI evolution is here. It could be more of a revolution – swift and significant, potentially making a bigger impact on our daily lives over the next 20 years than the internet did over the last 20.

It will of course bring with it investment opportunities and fortunes will be made – and lost! Our investment team will be monitoring its progress. Whilst the Lowes Changing World Portfolio and others won’t be becoming significantly exposed to AI companies in the short term, we are confident that the managers of relevant elements of the portfolio will be closely monitoring developments, as it is set to become one of the new ‘megatrends’.

As far as our business is concerned, we are always on the lookout for ways in which we can improve the service we provide to clients and it might not be long before variations of artificial intelligence can help us in the way we provide assistance to you.

That said, you can be sure that whatever the future holds we will endeavour to continue to be a business that sticks to our motto of “personal finances cared for personally” - by real people rather than any artificial intelligence.

Lowes Financial Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.