AI And The Future Of Paraplanning with Templi | Jack Sleator

A paraplanner sits down on a Monday morning to write one new business suitability report and loses most of the day to it. The document runs to 40+ pages. The client takes it home after a one hour meeting and, if we are honest, reads about five of them. Sam Oakes is joined by Jack Sleator, co-founder of Templi and a former paraplanner and adviser who spent five years inside UK advice firms before he started building software for them. Jack went from a graduate admin scheme at a large Irish wealth manager, into paraplanning at a national firm in Newcastle, then into advice at an IFA, before co-founding Templi in 2024. Templi started life as a suitability report writing tool and relaunched as a connector that sits across the systems advice firms already use, automating the work in between client meetings. That shift is the heart of this conversation. Writing the report faster is the easy win. What happens to the paraplanner career path, to accountability, and to the 40 page document itself is the much harder question, and Jack does not dodge any of it. In a survey of 209 advisers, suitability report writing came out as the single biggest bottleneck in the advice workflow, taking around three hours on average. Jack has customers who have cut that to 20 minutes. He is also the first to say that a time saving in one place does not change what an advice business is capable of. This episode is built for paraplanners, financial advisers and firm owners who want a straight answer on what AI actually changes inside a regulated advice business, rather than another round of provider marketing. EPISODE TAKEAWAYS: • Why Jack thinks the paraplanner role survives, and which tasks he expects to disappear first • The uncomfortable gap behind a 74% AI adoption rate and a 6.2 out of 10 efficiency score • The reason your data does not need to be perfect before you start, only reachable • What happens to the junior career ladder when AI handles the letters of authority • The one question to ask an AI output before you put your name on it • Whether the 40 page suitability report deserves to survive at all • Where to start on Monday morning if your firm has not touched AI yet Financial Planner Life is sponsored by Redmill Advance Whether you're starting out, already qualified, or building a training academy, Redmill Advance delivers expert-led learning, exam support and CPD from Level 4 to Chartered. ✅ Trusted by top UK firms 👉 www.redmilladvance.com/fpl Be sure to follow Financial Planner Life on YouTube for extra content about  career development within Financial Planning.  Want to appear on the Financial Planner Life podcast? Reach out to [email protected] Reach out to [email protected] in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or podcast production.