BSLS2023: Mortgage advisers safe because ‘Artificial Intelligence can’t do soft facts’– Cheetham

Speaking at The British Specialist Lending Senate, Stuart Cheetham (pictured), co-founder and chief executive of MQube, said that around 80 per cent of the advice process can be done using AI, and this comes in the form of assessing data or the “hard facts”.

He explains that this includes collating, verifying and structuring data that would be done in a fact find, like where someone lives, age, job and credit history.

“[AI] It will do it [hard facts] better to be blunt, but it won’t be able to do the advice thing, because humans are better at doing that,” Cheetham said.

However, the remaining 20 per cent of the advice process, or the “soft facts”, will remain in the remit of advisers, Cheetham noted. This includes information around customer’s risk appetites and future life and financial events.

“AI can’t do soft facts; AI is not advanced enough for this. Robo advice doesn’t exist and don’t know anybody that has showed me an example of this anywhere in the world,” he added.

Cheetham continued that it would “take quite a long time for AI or machine learning to start making big jumps forward to start replacing that type of softer fact assessment”, but automating the fact find “is very achievable and it could be done today”.

The specialist mortgage market

In the specialist space, the AI human advice process split changes to 60 per cent can done by AI and 40 per cent done by humans.

“There’s just simply more advice in the specialist space,” Cheetham explained.

He continued that advisers would “embrace more and more of this technology” as they got to “focus on where you actually really add value, especially in the specialist sector”.

“This will start to change that journey for advisers and that will be uncomfortable. I think for most advisers in the marketplace that will change the way the business model works,” he added.