Deepfake it till you make it: Revolutionising client comms via digital clone

James Gerrard, founder of FinancialAdvisor.com.au, embarked on a journey earlier this year to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in his practice.

He told ifa that streamlined communication lies at the heart of advice and delved into the realm of generative AI to enhance the client experience.

“I started to explore different applications of AI and how we might be able to integrate into our financial planning business with the consideration that we are in the business of communicating to people,” Mr Gerrard told ifa.

“There’s only one James, but there are lots of different things that I, or advisers, want to say. So then I came across this deepfake technology.”

Mr Gerrard’s “deepfake” – the use of generative AI to create lifelike images, audios, and videos – was first used to provide monthly updates to clients on the RBA’s cash rate decision.

For the July decision, which saw no change, he said it took around 30 minutes for his team to create a script and generate the update from “digital James” to send en masse to clients.

“Every time we get a few emails back saying that it’s great. So, clients do appreciate that extra communication that we’re sending out there which, traditionally, either wouldn’t have been sent out or would have been done by an email which tends to get lost in the hundreds of emails that get sent to everybody’s inbox every day,” he explained.

While embracing the power of deepfake technology, Mr Gerrard acknowledged the uncertainties it poses for the future, and lack of regulation surrounding its use.

“To my knowledge, there’s no sort of guidelines around how we should use this.”

From what he could see looking at the market, Mr Gerrard said there is likely no ability to create a dynamic or live deepfake but believes it will happen soon enough.

“This has a lot of cyber security risks. For example, somebody could digitise me and pretend to go into a meeting being me, but actually, it’s somebody else,” he said.

“As this technology continues to evolve and develop, there’ll be a lot of temptation for some people to misuse it. So I think that the various groups, ASIC for example, will have to come up with guidelines on how advisers should be using this type of AI technology.”

Andrew Whelan, chief executive of Mr Gerrard’s platform provider, DASH, said generative AI has the ability to address a number of pain points of Australia’s advisers.

“This solution targets time and workflow efficiencies. In a world where the historic advice model is a hand-to-hand, one-to-one process, this technology provides tailored advice at scale,” Mr Whelan told ifa.

This type of advice delivery, he added, will “revolutionise” a practice that is looking to deliver timelier investment and goals-based advice.

“It also provides clients with a flexible way of interacting and collaborating within the advice process. Some clients simply don’t have the time to have every meeting face-to-face or within business hours,” Mr Whelan said.

“So, we see AI as definitely having a role in helping advisers deliver advice in the future, whether that’s the full suite of available tools or it’s a pick and mix, there will definitely be AI at play, in some shape or form, embedded within the advice process,” he concluded.

Could deepfakes change the SOA landscape?

Looking forward, Mr Gerrard’s experimentation with deepfake technology extends to the realm of statements of advice (SOAs).

Earlier in July, FinancialAdvisor.com.au presented its first digitally web-based SOAs to clients.

“The best way to describe it would be like a canva deck. They can flick through a slide deck, and that’s their SOA,” Mr Gerrard explained.

In what he described as a more “dynamic” version of a traditional SOA, it is the first to be released that includes deepfake videos scattered throughout.

“There’s going to be about 20 deepfake videos throughout the different sections of the SOA, some of it will be templated like one page will introduce insurances and then that just be a standard deepfake … but other parts will be bespoke.”

He added that his goal in using this technology is to allow clients to see the value of their SOA in a more consumable – and efficient – manner.

“[Clients] will be able to see the recommendations provided to them before the adviser has even said a word to them, thanks to this deepfake digital SOA process, which allows me to scale my business.”

“So these are sort of little wins is what we’re trying to use AI technology for to just make our practice a little bit more efficient,” Mr Gerrard concluded.