Daniel Costa

Explaining complex financial concepts to clients used to be the hardest part of my job

I'm a financial adviser. The technical knowledge is one thing. Explaining a complex structure like a testamentary trust or a transition-to-retirement strategy to someone who's never encountered it before — that's a completely different skill. I used to write these explanations from scratch every time. Or adapt old ones. They were okay but not great. Now I use AI differently. I don't ask it to write the explanation. I ask it to play the role of a confused client and push back on my explanation until I can answer every question clearly. I'll write my explanation of, say, salary sacrificing. Then I paste it in and say "you're a 52-year-old teacher who has no investment background. Ask me every question a confused person would ask about this explanation." The questions that come back are genuinely the questions my clients ask. And by going through them, I end up with a much better explanation — one that pre-answers the confusions before they come up. My client satisfaction scores have gone up. More importantly, my clients are making better decisions because they actually understand what they're agreeing to.