Wealth managers and price comparison sites have become the latest companies to be hit by fears that their businesses will be disrupted by new artificial intelligence innovations.
Shares of Britain’s wealth management firms fell on Wednesday morning, after AI company Altruist Corp launched a service that said it helps advisers create personalized tax strategies by reading clients’ pay stubs, account statements and other documents.
UK wealth manager St James’s Place fell nearly 10% in early trading, rival Quilter dropped 5.2% and AJ Bell dropped 5.7% as investors speculated that agentic tools that can sort out tax matters, or provide advice, could put a dent in their revenues.
“AI advances are wreaking fresh havoc on the investment landscape,” warned Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at the Wealth Club.
“The big reveal from tech startup Altruist Corp, led by former Wall Street professionals, is a new tool that helps financial advisors personalize tax strategies for clients and deal with all the admin. The worry is that this is just the tip of the iceberg and new efficiencies will emerge from AI to disrupt the financial advice and investment industry and reduce the fees charged. As AI shuffles the cards, The pile of potential losers is growing, and speculation about which sector will be hit next is rife,” Streeter said.
Shares in Britain’s two biggest price comparison sites continued to fall on Wednesday, extending losses in the previous session. Money Group, owner of MoneySupermarket, fell 2% in early trading on Wednesday, after closing down 12% on Tuesday, as a sell-off sent its shares falling to their lowest level in 13 years.
Go.Compare owner Future was trading 2.7% lower on Wednesday morning, following a 3.6% decline the previous day.
Investors are nervous about the potential for disruption from AI and other new technologies, after US company Insurify launched a new service allowing users to compare car insurance quotes directly using OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Additionally, Spain-based digital insurer Tuyo is to provide home insurance quotes directly to ChatGPAT users, and other companies are expected to do the same, raising fears that consumers seeking car, home and travel insurance may turn to chatbots to gather and compare quotes.
Money Group owns brands such as Moneysupermarket and Travelsupermarket, as well as cashback website Quidco and personal finance support site MoneySavingsExpert, launched by Martin Lewis.
The future is one of the most shorted UK stocks as investors bet its value will fall further.
Snezina Zakaria, Insurify’s founder and chief executive, said the company is “redefining the insurance shopping experience by making it as simple as a conversation”.
He added: “Drivers can ask questions in simple language, find personalized quotes and review real customer feedback all in one place.”
Insurance and wealth management are the latest sectors to suffer big share price declines this year as a result of fears about the impact of AI, following declines in publishing and legal software companies and advertising firms.
“Getting insurance quotes through ChatGPT is perfect as many people are now using chatbots to get information about products and services,” said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at broker AJ Bell.
“The share price decline of the owners of Moneysupermarket and Go.Compare shows…comparison portals will need to quickly find a way to get into the game, such as by embedding their services in ChatGPT and offering potentially large incentives to potential customers as well as displaying their brand prominently in search results.”
The recent decline in software companies comes after US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, the company behind Chatbot Cloud, revealed a tool for use by companies’ legal departments.
Anthropic said the tool can automate legal tasks such as contract review, non-disclosure agreement triage, compliance workflows, legal briefings and templated responses.
The news hit shares of UK publishing group Pearson, information and analytics company Relax, as well as software company Sage.
