Private AI for Advice Practices Who Can't Afford a Trust Breach
74% of Australian advice practices already use or plan to use AI (Adviser Ratings, 2025 Australian Financial Advice Landscape Report), but governance hasn't kept pace: ASIC's own review of licensees found barely half had AI governance policies in place. ASIC hasn't issued AI-specific rules yet, but existing licensee accountability applies in full regardless of the tools used, including for cyber security and third-party data handling. Althorn runs AI entirely on hardware inside your office, so client financials never reach a third-party server in the first place.
Clients disclose net worth, family situations, sometimes information their own family doesn't have. In a client's mind, "trust me with your money" and "trust me with your data" are functionally the same promise. Althorn exists so your practice can use AI for drafting, research, and portfolio work without ever putting that promise at risk, which matters more here than in most sectors, because so little formal guidance exists yet to force the issue.
Sources: Adviser Ratings, 2025 Australian Financial Advice Landscape Report (74% adoption figure); ASIC, REP 798, Beware the gap: Governance arrangements in the face of AI innovation (29 October 2024; 12 of 23 licensees examined had AI governance policies addressing fairness and bias).
What applies even without an AI-specific instrument
- Full existing licensee accountability for competence, cyber security, and third-party data handling, applied in full to AI use.
- No carve-out for embedded features: AI functionality already switched on inside CRM, research, or portfolio tools counts the same as a deliberate AI session.
- Accountability sits with the licensee, not the vendor.
- A written policy is the practical starting point, even without an AI-specific rule to build against.
There's no single named ASIC document to point to the way accountants have TPB(GS) 55/2026 or solicitors have QLS Guidance Statement No. 37. That absence gets read by some practices as "nothing to worry about yet." It's closer to the opposite: no AI-specific rule doesn't mean no rule.
How Althorn closes the gap
Financial advisers are currently one of the least contested sectors on the on-premise side specifically. Almost nobody is pitching this directly to advice practices yet, which means you get to set the terms of the conversation.
Althorn installs AI that runs on hardware inside your office instead of routing client financials through a subscription service you don't control. Your team keeps the productivity, your compliance file gets a simple, honest answer to "where does client data go."
What this looks like in practice
- A policy that's easier to write and follow: no list of external vendors and retention terms to track.
- AI-assisted drafting, research, and portfolio summarisation without client financials reaching a third-party server.
- A concrete answer if ASIC or a client ever asks: "our AI tools run on infrastructure we own, on-site."
The reputation case, not just the compliance case
Clients don't just want good returns, they want to feel like the person managing their future takes their privacy as seriously as their performance.
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Common questions
Has ASIC issued specific rules on AI use in financial advice?
Not yet, as a dedicated instrument. ASIC has been clear that existing licensee obligations apply in full regardless of which tools a practice uses.
Does this mean we need to stop using our current AI tools while we sort out a policy?
No. It means documenting which tools are approved, what client data can go into them, and who reviews the output.
We're a small practice. Is this worth the cost before we scale up?
The obligation doesn't scale with practice size. A smaller practice often closes the gap faster, since there's less to audit.