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The Navvai Shift – AI & Business Insights
Welcome to The Navvai Shift, the podcast where business leaders in finance share their journeys, challenges, and unfiltered thoughts on artificial intelligence. We dive deep into how AI is shaping industries, uncovering real-world insights from those driving innovation.
Subscribe for expert conversations on AI, automation, and the future of business.
hello everyone welcome to Navi shift uh
the podcast powered by Navi uh my name
is Josh I am one of the three
co-founders of naai I'm also here with
Darnell and we are also joined by
madelin who is the co-founder of uto so
we're appreciative of having you on
board um could you give the audience
just a light introduction to yourself
and what you
do yeah super super excited to be here
thank you both for having me uh so my
name is meline I'm the CPO and
co-founder of utto I spent my jority of
my career at Fidelity so a large
incumbent building digital products and
saw how difficult it was for these large
very prestigious very well-resourced
firms to be able to utilize new
technology and to fundamentally shift
the client experience during that time I
started an investment Network mainly for
my female friends and broader Network um
because I was the only one who had a
financial qualification and was able to
help 10 years later my friends are still
coming to me for help I I've been
confronted by the advice gapen all that
time there still hasn't been a
fundamental shift in how people can
access financial help whether that's
advice or that's guidance
um my initial hypothesis was I mean how
can you create a more uh distinctive or
client Ecentric um direct consumer kind
of experience but actually the
fundamental issue is the underlying
technology that wealth managers and
advisers are using it's 30 years old
it's archaic it's siloed it's
disjointed and it's not fit for this
next generation of both wealth users and
also financial advisors and wealth
managers um to help put perspective one
in five advisors are looking to retire
the average AG Financial Advisor is
around 60 the average age of a wealth
client is 65 Plus right so we're going
through this huge once in a generation
wealth transfer interestingly that
wealth transfer is happening both in
terms of age so going
from uh the kind of 60 70 year old plus
down to the Next Generation but also in
terms of gender so soon 6% of the UK's
wealth will be controlled by women for
the first time ever and this creates
huge huge fundamental shifts if majority
of the wealth is controlled by women yet
only 50% of financial advisors are women
60% of females want to have financial
advisor as the a female financial
advisor as their advisor you got to you
got to mess right you got to just join
and I believe the only way that can be
solved is better technology and that's
exactly what I'm building AO yeah that's
absolutely amazing I can definitely
sense the passion that you have about um
artificial intelligence and I'm really
interested for our listeners to um you
know make note on what is here to come
and that's actually here to stay you
probably could agree you know AI is not
going anywhere it's it's it's here to
stay it's it's definitely you know thing
that a lot of people need to need to
learn and uh get get a good grip
absolutely I always say look at other
industries that are similar to wealth uh
legal and medical a perfect example
where you have a expert and you have a
client in those Industries AI is so much
more adopted at the uh in the core
incumbent for example harv great example
raised 65 million plus being used by all
the mic Circle law firms there's a lot
of Medtech ones nablo great example but
un used clinicians NHS is tring with AI
there is so much that's happening yet
wealth hasn't picked it up and the fact
that it's highly regulated the F fact
that you can't mess up is not an excuse
It's a reason why you should be using it
yeah not 100% so that is the main reason
why wealth managers are kind of still
stuck in like Legacy system is because
essentially they're not willing to go
past like the retory barrier like the
let's get to
it I think it's I mean one wealth
managers they're not technology buyers
their vocation is is um to understand
you know the changes in financial
regulation tax markets right that is our
perspective um and they've been working
with incumbent software that's doing an
okay job now for a long time to
radically change your software to use
new technology is really really really
scary um the way that legal and medical
have done it is by raising huge amounts
of money and coming in at the top um if
you look at Harvey the founder one was a
lawyer and one was a data scientist and
straight away they got backing from open
AI right they went massive and they come
from the US so this it's just a bigger
Market um so there's been like some
small things which is why the adoption
has been a bit slower but now that's
absolutely fundamentally changing this
wealth is doing really really really
interesting things already I think the
fact that a lot um there's large pack
consolidators right in in the UK and the
P houses what's interesting is they
absolutely adopting AI is a problem for
today it is problem for our right now um
and they're super strong in that and the
benefit is they see it in other
industries that they have uh exposure to
um so that that I think it's becoming
like less of a problem
now nice nice so I want I want to touch
on a little bit about Auto Finance as
we're aware you know um you guys are the
Forefront of AI powered financial
services from your
perspective what's the biggest
operational inefficiency that's still
holding back up back from a lot of
financial advisors
today yes um but back office task so 70%
of advisor's time is spent doing manual
back office admin if you even look
within the same within a a CRM quite
often advisor are copying and pasting
data within that CRM or they use a CRM
they use a cash flow planning tool they
use a risk tool these are not connected
and then they have their platforms as
well so there's just data silos
everywhere there's a lot of heavy
because it's so heavy
regulated a lot of the work is around
pleasing the regulator as opposed to
okay how can we truly ensure we're
delivering value to our client how can
we truly ensure the client understands
what we're doing or what what are other
things that we can do to help this
client like oh this client has children
are we helping the children how can we
do that they don't have the capacity to
do that because right now they're just
solely focused on meeting the regulatory
requirements and even some of those they
literally do not have the ability to
meet some of them because the technology
is not there in place for example
vulnerable clients advisors have to be
able to um highlight if one of their
clients if their clients are vulnerable
vulnerable meaning they've had a change
in circumstance and therefore they
require a bit more visibility attention
for example if somebody's recently
widowed they um their class is
vulnerable or potentially vulnerable
just to check that their circumstances
and they they're in control and they
understand everything there's no way
with with Auto with AI gentic systems
you can take the transcription data you
can use AI to understand it you can use
AI to understand if it's been a change
in circumstance or something that would
potentially class somebody as vulnerable
you can highlight that to the advisor
they can agree they can disagree and
then there'll be separate course of
actions that can be automatically put in
place if they were to agree that that uh
client is vulnerable and that could be
even simple like set a followup on two
months to check in I mean it these none
of this is automated right like and it
should be and it the thing is Automation
and utilizing this data will provide a
much better experience for the end
client because right now advisor manage
what 100 150 clients on Excel with
conditional formatting a shared Excel
and then their tasks on a different
sheet it's it's clunky I mean how can
you get like Rich analysis and uh really
keep track of people
if that's how you're having to manage it
wow wow in in terms of clients right how
have clients expectations evolved with
the rise you know of AI driven financial
services I don't think their
expectations yet have Chang in financial
services I think their expectations in
terms of how they interact with um the
people that they pay to help them more
broadly have changed right yeah so if
you're used to banking is a great
example Bank Bing has had so much
investment that most even the incumbent
Banks uh have good online banking
experiences and if you use a um like a A
revolute or a challenger bank right it's
pretty slick like the onboarding the
security the help it's all instant it's
really good I always think imagine if
you had 300 P from revolute from your
last holiday that you just kind of have
left there and then you have 300K of
your wealth manager by the way your
wealth manager wouldn't even be able to
serve you profitably with 300K
the customer experience you're going to
get with revolute is like what 100x
better in terms of immediacy
personalization benefits Insight then
your wealth manager who might who might
have a client portal where you could log
on and you log on and you might be able
to see your portfolio value you might be
able to see your return you might be
able to see your Holdings and that's
it doesn't make sense that makes sense
so um so would you say that's what uto
is kind trying to transform inry so you
said that 70% of what Financial B do is
admin are you trying to essentially get
that 70% back down to like 20% so then
there's now 80% that no no advisors
should spend their entire day talking to
clients like their job is to be the face
right like they need to build
relationships build trust understand the
clients C them people go through massive
massive Life Changes right with their
wealth manager if you have a great
wealth manager it can see you through
like the entire circle of life right and
that people will always want that it's
so so important my vision is that in
three years time and five years time an
advisor is on the call of a client and
the client says okay like I'm going
through a bit of the situation like I'm
I can take less risk now maybe theyve
changing jobs maybe they had a divorce
whatever it might be and then Otto will
be able to say to the
adviser you want to rebalance this
client's portfolio from risk five to
risk three and the advisor will say yes
and that will happen if you said that to
an advisor right now they won't believe
you like that is how manually intensive
it is and that's not adding value
changing their that what they're
invested into a different risk category
isn't adding value it's a hygiene Factor
now if I then say oh also on the call
the client mentioned they have a child
and they're worried about the child's
like financial habits and saving for
college whatever it might be now if you
have like a true kind of operating
system for wealth
AO be a to say ah I can see there's a
potential for an additional client on
the lower cost more um proposition that
maybe you just need guidance maybe it's
like a robo plus kind of service should
I open accounts and an activation email
to the uh to the child and do the
necessary regulatory obligations and set
up like a a family unit through through
Auto yes yes yes that's going to serve
people better right now it's it's hard
even to match
families through CRM let alone to be
able to serve them and their different
needs so AO can basically serve them in
real time as well from from what I
understand yeah so we the real time
thing is really interesting so we we
have we trialed it we're giving real
time insights to advisors on a call um
it can be confusing right because you're
like
whoa what what's going on what I've
learned is that you've got to do one
thing extreme extremely well extremely
simply nail it everybody's happy and
then you can move on to the next
incremental thing so that that's the
kind of how we approach that nice you
you was talking about advisors and the
relationships that they have with also
taking on new clients do you feel do you
feel like that it's super important to
keep that touch there without losing
without Los do you think it's important
to keep that human element when advisers
are speaking to new potential clients
instead of you know the human element is
critical and look look at the robo
advisors so many have not have failed I
think wellon PA tried what three times
in the UK two three times Rob had the
same it's very very difficult to not
like had to be acquired right like it's
very very difficult to build a
sustainable direct
consumer
nonhuman pm and the CAC is super high
people churn and that's because and this
is what this industry doesn't understand
because everybody in the room that we
always talk to cares about investing
likes investing it's inherently
interested investing most people aren't
most people find it boring they find it
scary they find it something that they
have to do that they don't really get
how to do in like delay delay delay and
they don't have they don't even know
what is a trusted source to go to to
upskill it's also societally for in
England right money isn't spoken about
and it's not
uh you don't talk about wealth you don't
talk about wealth generation like it's
within broader societal circles that
it's not really like part of our culture
we're not like the US where it's a very
gross orientated hustle mindset that's
not as a nation what we're like um yeah
so it's super important to have that
human element now does that mean that
for everybody the human element is the
same no do I think you could use avatars
to help on board people yeah maybe I
mean you can definitely try what we
found with um we were triling with this
and some engagement um some engagement
client engagement is even higher when
you have an avatar because you say it's
an avatar and people are just fascinated
that it's not a real person obviously
that will fade over time but there's
definitely options yeah do in terms of
advisors um just again do you see
advisors becoming more receptive to
automation or do you think it's there's
still a little bit of a resistance
that's there I think you got to look
into the future one life advisors are
looking to retire it's incredibly
difficult for wealth managers to be able
to recruit financial advisors lots of
them have advisories they literally
training people up to do it now how do
you make this job super attractive you
supercharge them technology so they can
double triple quadruple 10 10x their
client book meaning they can 10x their
their income their revenue at the same
time as 10x in their client book you
decrease the cost to serve which means
one again
the the profit margin is much higher and
two nobody wants to spend their time
data inputting right you want to spend
your time with people helping people
growing your business working out like
how you want to take your business
what's your ideal client type finding
connections between your client becoming
that Central Hub of wealth looking at
Alternatives looking at like how you can
broader your your investment offering or
your kind of broader uh proposition
spending time thinking about like how do
I want to communicate with my clients
like that's what you want to be doing
not copy pasting six things from one
system to another yeah the boring the
boring manual tasks is the boring manual
tasks I've I've seen I've seen a lot of
it recently we was actually speaking to
actually spoke with someone today who
again they that's something that they
want to remove from their business
because they just find it it's just
again it's just boring it can literally
be replaced someone can actually do that
think exactly what you said want to
remove the cool thing is now they have
to we have something has shifted the
last 18 months where it goes from being
a want to a necessity if you do not
automate part of your business the more
manual tasks you will not have the last
10 years of growth that you've had for
the next 10 years like that that now is
kind of said in stone you can see visors
of voting by by how they like you know
the reception that we had advisor
software.com ftrc event people are like
really understand that I feel for
advisors because they're not not
technology buyers nor should they be
right like they should spend their time
like I said earlier like understanding
the markets and and financial you know
regulation and um structure but they're
having to to to skill up to understand
um how to be a technology buyer and part
of what I do is almost like acting as a
friendly F con being like okay this is
what I think you know this is the
questions that you need to ask this is
what you got to think about it's very
different than before but the classic
like nobody got fired for hiring
IBM that's what we have to break as an
industry how does Auto ensure that
automation doesn't like diminish any of
the key client
needs I
mean automation enhan of the advisor's
ability to get the key client needs what
clients need is to understand the
service that they are paying for like
that's like a fundamental part of what
the
regulation requires and right now
advisors don't necessarily have ability
to provide that um so I I think it's
also like if you meeting uh meetings are
a great example of such an underutilized
asset right now like if you can
intelligently through uh AI understand a
meeting can craft a rich Prof on that
client and then can create actions based
off that profile that client you're
going to give that client a way way
better experience for example let's say
the client is tagged as vulnerable
because they're going through a divorce
maybe um that will enable the adviser to
make sure the client understands the
financial topics that are relevant for
them in that particular life situation
that they're going through to check in
at tax and to make sure they ask
particular you questions or give the
client Flags around particular things
that might occur because of that
circumstance right now all of that is
just kind of like dependent on the
advisor remembering and it's impossible
if I mean manag 150 people it's a lot of
people it's a lot of things to
remember so I see that you're kind of an
advocate for this um automations so
would you say there's any like
limitations I mean you what we have to
do with the industry is to go on a
journey we need to start with the low
hanging fruit the fruit is a bit less
scary not like automating advice itself
focusing on client servicing getting
that in place building up all of those
data Integrations taking devices on a
journey helping them to understand
actually what AI is and what it's not
and what to be scared of and what not to
be scared of I mean for example
hallucinations right like that depends
what kind of model you use if you're
using a model that's Ring fenced your
own client data in negates negates the
um it mitigates the hallucination risk
because everything is sourced back to
like a raw raw data point for example a
meeting transcription a point in the
meeting transcription um but everybody
needs to be taken um on this journey I
think what needs to happen is the fentex
like utto need to be thought leaders and
really kind of like carrying that to
show the art of the possible helping to
educate
people nice MD correct me if I'm wrong
but you you guys have a a white labeled
a white labeled client pool was that
right yes so we um we originally were a
financial coaching and guidance platform
for employees so a B2B Toc model um
because we wanted to get a a product in
the market that sat between a financial
expert of a financial coach and an end
client because that clear to us was that
the client experience of financial help
let's say in general needed to evolve um
that went really well we worked with a
lot of tech scale UPS we really
understood come of the market but it
became clear to us that actually like
the bigger
play um was helping the the advisers and
wealth managers but the beauty is that
platform that client portal we still use
and give um we actually give it for free
it's like a a perk right if you're using
the advisor platform um to our clients
because bit like my Revol um analogy
earlier the STA client portals is I
don't believe it's fit for purpose um
for the next generation of wealth users
and if we are saying our big mission at
utto is to close the advice Gap and to
help bring a new client experience then
we need to put our money where our
mouths and also be able to provide a
client portal to support that amazing
nice Ian we know AI how great it can be
but what would you say has been you know
the biggest challenge in
making AI personalized and so
seamless I think with any startup in
particular you need to do one thing
extremely well yeah uh and that's we're
learning so
like I could run I mean we're running
1,000 miles an hour but I could run a
th000 miles an hour in terms of scope of
the features that we ship right we could
accelerate everything but this has to be
a high quality product 100% accuracy
something that you can just trust
explicitly and so that's what we're
developing each of like the the agents
effectively that we
release it's extremely high quality at
that one single thing that it does and
then you go from there you can like uh
build out from there yeah I think our
listeners would be really interested to
know a little bit just surrounding
compliance and Regulatory challenges so
we know that also ensures that FCA um
consumer duty is compliant um
with automations and you know compliant
checks so yeah how critical is it in
today's compliances is extremely
challenging for wealth managers it's a
lot of
a lot of operational cost to be
compliant at some point with the
existing systems it's it's impossible in
some sense that's why I was really
excited to be working with the FDA the
AI Spotlight um lab it's great that they
have such a vision review of this
technology and they absolutely know it
can fundamentally help the industry um
and the reception we got um with them
has been um amazing I mean imag a world
right where the FCA all of the fca's
regulation is basically on API and then
for example reporting we can do we can
create a suitability report and we can
cross reference it through an API to the
fda's handbook and then there's a small
update based on I don't know disclosure
of fees or something a different way
that you should do it and also you can
understand that through the API and then
minute one minute later it's updated
that's impressive we need to that's
that's the vision um but again sometimes
it's like
um you have to help people get there as
well in terms of that's why I love the
phrase human in the loop you know how
can you make advises understand where
this is coming from understand how to
check this work in a new way yeah I
think the way that we also think about
it like most SAS products up until now
B2B software up until now has been built
to have a layer humans operating and
that has de given the kind of
credentials that it's safe right but
this is an entirely different approach
where like you're not building this we
don't building also to have a lay of
humans checking the work building ofo to
be able to do the work enabling the
human to confirm uh or to change like a
fundamental like part of like within the
journey if there's like a step change
for example like no Al got it Rong that
person wasn't vulnerable because of XY Z
or
whatever um but it's not going to be
doing the actual kind of like moving
from one point to the other point with
you with you in terms of like the
biggest compliant pain points you guys
deal with you
know what what are main what are the
biggest pain points that you help
clients deal with at all I think it's
cons Dy to be
honest um even just like the annual CL
review right like proving the um de
helping advisers to demonstrate the
value that they bring clients uh is is
really important and I think part of the
value having a great customer experience
is part of the value like personalized
emails from your advisor that can bring
you can bring the the value to to a
client um but we work with we work with
our clients really closely we work in a
lot of design Partnerships so we really
understand the advisor's needs and like
I always say like imagine you had a
magic want what do you want to happen um
and that's what we're working for
amazing and and do you see AI playing a
bigger role in governance and risk man
management yeah 100% but I think I mean
automation right will have Parts out the
AI and parts that AR it doesn't really
matter like for an advisor like who
cares you just want it it to be a really
good system like that's my problem um my
problem is to to create a simple
experience for the
adviser uh and also to communicate to
the adviser what they need to know
around data and security and what dat
like we obviously don't use Cent data to
train models but like educating advisors
around that but they don't need to know
where what's a sub agent and where
that's being you
know is is unnecessary um to them as a
distraction amazing so so you've spoken
about Auto as a co-pilot rather than a
replacement for
advisors what is next in line for what
is next what is next for AI
yeah we have a a huge vision of what we
want to do we want to build like the the
future of wealth the operating system of
wealth management that encompasses from
client servicing all the way down to
like holding AUM eventually uh that is a
huge huge huge play it's a long-term
play we're here to build a multi-decade
company um that will really like make a
step change in how we can Service uh
wealth clients I really want to be able
to decrease the cost of giving advice I
want to make it a more attractive
industry for advisers to join and I
think as a kind of a side thing both of
those will impact the amount of uh
client female clients that you see in
wealth the amount of female advisors
that you see in wealth and to me those
things are I mean that's absolutely
critical right especially with the um
gender wealth transfer that's happening
too but I think part of the problem has
been what we having this like shift
right this like all the balls are from
the air and now like
we're what's it called like uh juggling
trying to make them land um this is the
very rare opportunity to have that but
for me obviously as a female founder is
important on the B land there is more
equality between men and women when it
comes to finance but in terms of How
It's run how it's invested and who
manages
it interesting so um I just wanted to
ask you a question so you gave the
analogy of like you say you're juggling
blls at the moment what would you say is
like the biggest kind of bottleneck for
auto finance like what is kind of the if
there's like a blockage what would you
say it
is I think any startup
as a founder of a startup I feel like I
am a crime scene
investigator having to understand the
who solved the the the murder of the
product Market fit right like intense
intense product Market fit and that is a
journey That Never Ends look at clo like
look at the the journey they've been on
on highs and lows prod Market is
evolving because the market evolves and
Technology evolves and consumer evolves
rapidly so you're a crime scene
investigator then you're a properer with
one hand because you're you've got to
make sure that you get the right order
of events in terms of building the
product raising funding onboarding
clients and making sure that happens in
a way where you're growth you have
enough growth to be able to to grow but
then you can afford that growth into
Services because the last thing I want
to do is unold an unhappy client right
so you need to get that all in the uh
the right order
and then like with your other hand
you're in showz you know you you if you
want to create a category you've got to
sell have a vision you got to sell the
dream you got to understand what the
dream is and that's really hard to
understand what the dream is so you're
doing all as a Founder you're doing all
these things um at the same time um
whilst maintaining energy and and your
own passion so that I mean it's
difficult but I wouldn't say it's
difficult I say it's challenge it's
challenging but like I love it
and the price is really big like if you
can solve the advice Gap like that is
like how what an incredible uh thing to
be working on but like for uto we've got
to get the things in the right order
we've got to be able to build I need to
be able to add value to my clients today
I need to be able to grow my client base
because I need to be able to continue to
capitalize the business to be able to
grow the business be able to grow our
revenues and then to put the right fees
to incrementally release all SW
maintaining that Future Vision but
that's just a startup I mean that's just
D go right that that everybody's on that
Journey but I think um it's I mean it's
an intellectually challenging problem to
always try and solve nice from one
business owner to another um again I do
like a story so what's been like one of
the biggest learning cures that you had
since starting alter
I think having founder problem fit is
really
important
because as a startup like there's tons
of reasons you can do well and there's
tons of reasons you can fail but if you
have like a reason why you are going to
be more Relentless than anybody else
this is really important we were um
invited so we're about by S and they
invited us to that office in Meno Park
which for me was like a pinch moment
right like to be on San Hill Road to be
with all these incredible investors to
meet literally uh Founders and we met
the founder of Instagram and we were
like if you could start any business now
what would you start he's like oh I'll
do something in wealth management that's
a huge potential there and there's like
it's an industry that you know the
client service is not good and there's a
lot to be able to do and I'm like wow
like what a moment to
be in this room talking to Mike creger
about this for him to validate our idea
and to
um uh to want to be involved like that I
I just think it's um having that passion
is super
important amazing and where do you see
also within like the next six to 12
months six to 12
months continuing as we are we release
features weekly we're growing really
really fast we're growing our team
really fast as well um we want to be I
what's interesting is you get to a point
where you you built a new company where
you start to have brand recognition and
trust and that's really really important
to me as well I want a to be known as
this like source of authority on what
wealth will become of an incredible
product that's going to get you
there amazing that's nice and what would
you say is like the biggest barrier
preventing know faster AI adoption
within your
industry I think it's the fear of
Regulation the fear that AI is going to
perform worse than a human or make more
mistakes the fear that that will devalue
like using AI will maybe devalue a
service or it's just not appropriate for
the industry I don't think that's fair I
think you just got to have the right
products the right Talent uh to
implement it really well and just do a
fewer things but do them really really
really
well so why do you think there is stigma
about AI do you think it's because
people just don't know how to use it in
their businesses would you say I think
um people don't understand it and they
haven't seen enough proof points and use
cases which is why I love its adoption
then legal and then um
Medtech I think that's really important
because like I said they're very very
similar Industries in some
senses um and you absolutely would
assume that like the software doctors
use and lawyers is bulletproof right and
trustworthy is and I say sort of last
question MADD if you were to speak to a
you know someone within your industry or
you know someone that wanted to start uh
wanted to start a business in any
field and they wanted to and they were
kind of concerned about AI how would you
go about letting them know about Ai and
its benefits I don't be concerned about
it adop love it it's your friend it does
all the loads of work that you don't
want to do um I don't think it's a
concern I think it's a it's an
opportunity and where is we're day one
so like understand it understand the
tools that you can use save your your
like time yourself start using it start
uning the limitations start using it in
like a more connected agentic uh
way and then grow your business from
there I mean even internally how we
operate uh we we build our own like
internal um automated processes to help
us with our um deals pipeline help us
with customer success client onboarding
we ought to meet what we can
because doing it human isn't necessarily
providing a better service at thought
it's just I'd rather spend my time
thinking about the product and talking
with my clients I'm with you the human
element that's we said exactly exactly
nice well Maddie um I just generally
want to say thank you so much um it's
been an absolute fantastic discussion um
there's been a lot of gems that have
been frown in this conversation I hope
people have their notepad impeded and
makeing notes on it so yeah we've had
Maddy from auto finance she's clearly
making huge waves within the AI scene
and wealth management so thank you so
much for showing your insights