I was reading an article1 where the author says AI will not replace financial advisors, and one of the arguments was, "Trust is a big part of it. Humans like working with other humans." The article has additional arguments for why human advisors will sustain the AI era, but I want to focus on the role of "human trust" in AI job automation/replacement.
We used to call brokers/agents to buy insurance policies, stocks, and travel tickets, but now we buy these online. Human trust has completely moved to software-based trust.
Yeah, humans like humans. But efficiency and cost take over. If I get an insurance policy for $1,000 from a neighborhood agent in 2 days vs buying it online for $900 in 2 hours, I'll buy it online. I am sure many others will do so. If a solution is built by an institution and complies with regulations, it provides the assurance and trust required for a transaction. So, don't bet your farm only on "Humans like working with other humans."
Let's talk about the first statement, "Trust is a big part of it". Yeah, trust is crucial in any transaction, but humans are not mandatory to establish and maintain trust. We trust our car (not a carriage driver); we trust the courier company to deliver a package across the world in 24 hrs, without bothering who (human) picked it up at the door or who delivered it to the door.
Another factor with humans is that we have a wide spectrum of capabilities and ethical standards (wrt prioritizing our own incentives vs. customers' benefits). Your advisor/agent around the corner might be in the 99th percentile in capability or in the bottom quartile. A well-built AI solution will always have a static capability (not a spectrum), will improve faster than humans, and will be better than the median human capability.
Whether you are defending your businesses against AI or building a business with AI, focus on building trust with your customers, either with or without humans.
[1] https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/03/will-ai-replace-financial-advisors-2/ ↩