Consumers using AI to make important financial decisions
Would you allow AI to help choose your insurance or make financial decisions on your behalf?
The level of consumer appetite may already be greater than many expected.
Following publication of the FCA’s Mills Review, the regulator’s head of insurance market analysis and policy has reportedly expressed surprise at consumers’ willingness to use AI in financial purchasing decisions.
The Review found that one in five UK adults is already open to AI making financial decisions for them, particularly where choices are complex or high-stakes.
That could accelerate major changes in the way consumers search for, compare and purchase financial products. But it also raises an increasingly important question:
As AI becomes more involved in financial decisions, who remains accountable for the outcome?
Issues around transparency, consumer understanding, oversight, fair outcomes and access to redress are likely to become increasingly important as AI moves from providing information towards making recommendations and acting on consumers’ behalf.
The challenge may no longer be convincing consumers to use AI.
It may be ensuring that governance and consumer protection develop quickly enough to keep pace with adoption.