Social media and AI are changing my client base - SJP planner Jones

Interesting article in Citywire, evidence of a shift from advice to agency from an SJP adviser?

01 Oct, 2026

Social media and AI are changing my client base - SJP planner Jones

Bryant Hall Todd’s Luke Jones says social media and AI means clients are coming through the door with knowledge and many more questions than before."

Article link.

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This is a useful signal of the shift towards agency—though it demonstrates changing client behaviour more clearly than a changed advice model.

Citywire’s introduction reports that Bryant Hall Todd’s Luke Jones is seeing clients arrive with more knowledge and more questions because of social media and AI.

The underlying change is significant: the adviser increasingly meets someone who has already begun thinking through the decision. Clients can arrive with explanations, alternatives and questions to test, rather than relying on the adviser to define the entire conversation.

That can shift power in three ways:

• Agenda: clients help determine what needs discussing.

• Scrutiny: they can question costs, assumptions and alternatives.

• Authority: expertise becomes something they assess, rather than automatically defer to.

But knowledge and questions are precursors to agency. The stronger test is whether clients become better able to understand, choose and act—and whether advisers support that independence. An informed client can still remain dependent.

Your interpretation is therefore defensible as: “Evidence consistent with a shift from advice to agency, emerging from within the advice profession itself.”

The memorable distinction is: AI may be changing who asks the questions. Agency changes who owns the decision.