Why AI will never replace relationships in specialist finance 💻

Why AI will never replace relationships in specialist finance 💻

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. It is in our inboxes, in our social feeds, in the sudden flood of formulaic content sliced across our screens. AI is in the headlines for almost every sector. Specialist finance is no exception. But while technology can sharpen processes and speed up tasks, it cannot replace human judgement or the relationships that lie at the heart of our industry. Too often this is overlooked when we look at the impact of AI on the world of work; the conversation often drifts towards fear. What happens when AI becomes so efficient that it eats into jobs? What happens when borrowers, brokers, and lenders simply plug into a system that can generate answers faster than any human? The truth is far less dramatic. If history is a guide, technology doesn’t wipe out professions, it reshapes them and sometimes reinvigorates them, but people always remain at the core. Take the arrival of Excel and pivot tables in the accountancy profession. When sophisticated spreadsheets became widely available, there were dark predictions on the horizon, predictions that accountants were soon to become obsolete. Instead, the opposite happened. There are more accountants in the UK now than ever before. Rather than eliminating the need for finance professionals, spreadsheets streamlined their work. Routine number crunching became less painful, freeing accountants to advise, interpret, and apply human reasoning where it matters. They moved from bookkeeping to consultancy. The same principle applies to specialist finance. AI can undertake a lot of the legwork, but it cannot sit down with a broker and talk through a complex case. It can’t understand the story behind the numbers or weigh up the intricacies of risk and reward in the way people can. It cannot build