Can a financial adviser or mortgage broker use ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot for client work? Business plan prices on 1 October 2026, what each vendor says about training on your data, and three prompts with no client in them

Yes, for routine work that is not advice, on a business plan, with nothing in the prompt that identifies a client, and with the adviser reading what comes back. On 1 October 2026 a business seat cost between £13.80 and £22.50 a month, and the FCA's own page on AI said it does not plan extra rules.

What this is, and is not. A desk check of four vendors' price pages and data terms, read in a browser on 1 October 2026. We did not trial the products and we do not rank them.

What a business seat costs

ChatGPT Business and Claude Team start at two seats. Copilot Business is an add-on to a Microsoft 365 business plan; Microsoft also sells Business Standard with Copilot as one licence at £18.10 a user a month, paid yearly, before VAT.

Claude's page shows dollars until its scripts run, then pounds with the line "Prices include 20% VAT". £18 with VAT is £15 before it (18 ÷ 1.2). ChatGPT's page shows £15 without saying whether VAT is in it, so ask before you compare the two.

Four seats for a year

Take a firm buying four seats: two advisers, a paraplanner and an administrator.

Copilot works inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, and its figure sits on top of the Microsoft 365 licences the firm already pays for. The Google figure buys email and documents as well, so it compares only if you would move your email.

What each vendor says about training on your data

Three of the four qualify the promise with "by default" or "without permission". The setting belongs to whoever administers the account, so one named person should hold it. A personal login is a different contract.

Training is one condition of six. The rest are in our guide to AI and client data in an advice firm.

What the FCA has published

Three pages on fca.org.uk, read the same day:

• "AI and the FCA: our approach", last updated 13 February 2026, says: "We do not plan to introduce extra regulations for AI." It relies on existing frameworks and names two: the Consumer Duty, and senior manager accountability under the SM&CR.
• The AI in financial services page reports that 75% of firms have adopted some form of AI and 84% have an individual accountable for it.
• The Mills Review, published on 6 July 2026, makes seven priority recommendations to the FCA Board. They are addressed to the regulator, and none is a rule for firms.

So nothing forbids a chat assistant, and nothing excuses what it writes.

Three prompts with no client in them

None needs a name, a date of birth, a policy number, an address or a health detail.

1. Plain wording. Paste your own standard paragraph under it.

Rewrite the paragraph below for a reader with no financial background. Keep every number and date exactly as written. Add no fact, opinion or recommendation. List any term you could not make simpler.

2. Reading a public paper. Check each paragraph number against the paper afterwards.

Below is the text of an FCA consultation paper. List each proposed change that affects a firm with fewer than ten advisers, with the paragraph number it comes from. Where you cannot see a paragraph number, write "not found".

3. An office procedure. The timetable is the one in our letter of authority chase guide.

Draft a one-page procedure for chasing a letter of authority at 10, 15 and 20 working days. Use numbered steps and say who does each one. Mark every assumption you made with the word CHECK.

Read every output before it is used.

The job we would not hand over

The recommendation, and the paragraph of the suitability report that says why it suits this client.

COBS 9.4.7R requires the report to explain why the firm has concluded that the recommended transaction is suitable, having regard to the information the client provided. A general assistant can write that paragraph only if the fact-find is pasted in, which is the client data the prompts keep out. It would then produce tidy reasons the adviser never had. The reasoning has to be the adviser's own. The suitability report file check tests that it is on the page.

Recording a meeting has its own rule: see recording client meetings with an AI note taker.

Who signs

Overlyft is not a chat assistant and is not in these tables. It prepares review packs and drafts reports on the firm's own template for the adviser to check.

The adviser, and compliance where the firm's procedures require it, reviews and signs anything a tool drafts. This page is general information, not legal, regulatory or financial advice.