HomeGame 6
You got everything you normally get from a lang cat event, but this time it was in Leith – our actual home. It was mostly Scottish.
You got everything you normally get from a lang cat event, but this time it was in Leith – our actual home. It was mostly Scottish.
HomeGame 6 wasnโt just another HomeGame. It was a homecoming for the lang cat. We brought our annual event to just a few hundred metres from The Lang Cat Port Authority (thatโs our head office) and we wanted to invite you to join us for an event quite unlike any other.ย
HomeGame 6 landed at a time when the financial advice market had lots of new things to think about. For decades now, the profession has had a trump card โ โyeah but if you want actual financial advice then this is the only place you can get it.โ
Thatโs not true any more โ or is it? We already knew that general AI tools were widely used by clients not only to find out what to do with their money, but even to check recommendations or provide guidance on what to do when you meet an adviser. Alongside this, the D2C market was exploding; growth of the two channels used to be like tramlines but now the direct market is sprinting ahead.
All in all it was a good time to work out whatโs what out there. And thatโs what we did.
We knew that AI was giving advice, or what consumers perceived to be advice. What we didnโt know was how consistent that advice was, or how good it was.
Hereโs how it worked.
The storied, dilapidated, regenerating and peerless Leith Theatre was our communal AI lab for the day and hosted an event unlike anything financial services had seen before. The audience weren’t sitting and listening. They worked in teams, made decisions, prompted AI tools and โ possibly โ disagreed loudly with each other whilst having a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Before that the day opened the way a lang cat event always opens: with research, honesty, doomed attempts at entertainment, and the scene set for the sessions to come.
Then we did something really risky.
Every table became a client: the same client. Every client had an AI terminal already hooked up to one of the big generative models that clients typically use. They received a client brief, written the way a real person writes about their own financial life: incomplete, slightly emotional, and missing the things they don’t know they don’t know. We asked the audience to don a veil of ignorance and pretend to be a client โ no cheeky prompts saying โare you sure my portfolio will be optimised according to Markowitzโs efficient frontier theory?โ or anything like that. Each table had a Highheidyin[1] to make sure everything runs smoothly.
At the end, they asked their AI to summarise what it told them and to recommend next actions. We gathered that all together using witchcraft and Ancient Wisdom and gave the audience an initial playback before fuller details are published in the future.
Throughout, a small crack team of roving camerapeople and hosts er, ‘roved’ and found out how everyone was getting on.
While all this was going on, a small team of financial planners went through the same exercise also enabled with AI, but rather than a general system they used a leading adviser-focused AI tool. They didn’t agree on everything, but they needed to come up with a consensus view. That gave us a benchmark against which we measured the outputs from the tables.
At the end, we had 35 or so exercises which were all based off exactly the same data, produced at exactly the same time. The only difference were the prompts each table/client chose.
From that we learned a lot. We saw if the โadviceโ was actually advice or not.
This took up most of our day, but we did have a bit of time spare to talk about wider industry issues, heard from planners doing interesting things, thought about the regulatory response to all of this and how to navigate that, and more.
No-one has tried anything like this before in our sector; possibly anywhere. It was quite a ride. And it all happened in our home โ Leith. We donโt ask you into our house unless weโve got something very special prepared.ย [1] A boss, in Scots, literally โhigh head oneโ.
THE PRACTICALITIES
The date to mark in your calendars was Wednesday 7 October.
Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, tickets were free for advice professionals working at an advice firm; so advisers, planners, paraplanners, compliance and admin fill your boots (if you work for a huge provider with an advice offshoot you only qualify if youโre in an advice-giving or paraplanning role).
Everyone else was asked to buy tickets at a cost of ยฃ100 plus VAT.
CPD
This event provided 5 hours of structured CPD. Certificates will be sent out to attendees in the weeks following the event.
10.30 |
Doors open |
11am |
Welcome |
11:10 |
How this is going to work |
11.50 |
AI Lab: Round 1 |
12:20 |
AI Lab: Round 2 |
12.45 |
Leith Theatre: Why we’re here |
12.50 |
LUNCH |
13.50 |
AI Lab: Round 3 |
14.20 |
Panel: Making AI Sweat |
14.50 |
Alyn Smith MSP, Minister for Innovation and Technologyย |
15.15 |
BREAK |
15.45 |
Keynote: Hollie Davidson |
16.25 |
Playback / Close |
17.00 |
Drinks and nibbles |
Aleah spent over ten years in financial services operations, working alongside advice tech that always did a lot, but never quite everything. She recently joined Saturn as Head of Suitability Engineering and is thrilled to be joining a team on a mission to close that gap. Saturn's AI powered approach to financial advice isn't just about efficiency, it's about democratising access, closing the advice gap, and making quality wealth planning available to those who need it most.
Born in Glasgow in 1973, Mr Smith grew up in Scotland and Saudi Arabia. He studied Law and European Law at Leeds University and graduated from Nottingham Law School in 1996. He also gained a Masters degree in European Studies from the College of Europe in Warsaw. After a year teaching English in India and working with Scotland Europa in Brussels, Mr Smith moved to London where he qualified as a lawyer with commercial law firm Clifford Chance. In 2000 he moved back to Scotland, working first for a legal firm in Edinburgh, and from 2002 as an adviser to Richard Lochhead MSP and the SNP Group at Holyrood on European, Justice and Business policies. He was elected to the Scottish Parliament in May 2026 for the Stirling constituency. Prior to that, he was a Member of the European Parliament for Scotland from 2004 to 2019 and a Member of the UK Parliament for Stirling from 2019 to 2024.
Amal Jolly, the CEO and Founder of Saturn, is a seasoned professional with expertise in product/GTM in banking, insurance, wealth/asset management, and capital markets technologies.
Brodie Gillan is an Associate Economist at the Fraser of Allander Institute, Scotlandโs leading independent economic research institute. She leads the Scottish Business Monitor, speaking regularly with businesses across Scotland about the opportunities and challenges theyโre facing. Her recent work has explored how businesses are adopting AI and what that might mean for the workplace. Brodie also works on employment and fiscal analysis, and runs Economics Futures, which aims to engage more young people with economics and widen access to the profession. Brodie is appearing at the invite only Aberdeen Breakfast Session.
Derek leads Product, Technology, Digital and Data at Aberdeen Adviser, where he is building the technology behind the next era of financial advice in the UK. A career technologist, Derek joined Aberdeen from Morningstar, where he was CTO of its Wealth division. At Aberdeen he is applying frontier technology โ from AI and intelligent automation to deep software integration โ to the problems advice firms actually face: the administrative drag on adviser time, fragmented systems, and the growing gap between the number of people who need advice and the capacity of the profession to serve them. Derek is a vocal champion of the UK's advice community, and believes technology's job is to multiply what great advisers can do โ never to replace them.
Greg is a Chartered Financial Planner, with 20 yearsโ experience advising clients, plus a few years in agency side marketing in the middle. He set up a financial planning team at law firm WBD, before founding 11.2 Financial Planning, a boutique financial planning and multi-family office, in 2019. Away from work, he is a youth football coach, keen trail runner, reader and photographer, mainly of his dog Scout.
Hollie Davidson is a Scottish professional rugby union referee contracted to the Scottish Rugby Union, and one of the most groundbreaking officials in the sportโs history. A former Scotland Under-20 player who studied economic history at the University of Edinburgh before spending two years in banking which she gave up in 2017 to become Scotlandโs first full-time professional female referee. Her list of firsts continues to grow. In November 2025 she became the first woman to referee an All Blacks test match, refereeing Wales vs New Zealand in Cardiff. On 14 February 2026, she became the first woman to referee a Six Nations menโs match, taking charge of Ireland v Italy in Dublin, and on 18 April 2026 she became the first woman to referee a Top 14 match, between Clermont-Auvergne and Lyon. She has also refereed two Womenโs Rugby World Cup finals (2021 and 2025) โ a feat matched only by South Africaโs Andrรฉ Watson โ and in 2025 was inducted into the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame, the same year she was named World Rugby Referee of the Year. Now firmly established as one of the gameโs most respected officials, Davidson continues to break new ground with every appointment, cementing her place as one of rugbyโs most influential figures on and off the pitch.
Spentwell was started by Keith Boyes โ a Chartered Financial Planner with over a 18 years of industry experience and hatred of industry jargon. Keithโs worked in many of the industryโs biggest financial planning firms and had a spell in Hong Kong, advising ex-pats. Heโs motivated by the little moments of joy that sound financial planning allows. Helping people get the most they possibly can from life is a constant source of satisfaction. He lives in Blackhall, Edinburgh and loves Anna, his two adorable little daughters, family and friends, coffee, eating out, the occasional gin and tonic, travelling and playing any sport that involves a ball. Especially football. Heโs a Director of The Spartans Football Club and youโll find him there most Saturdays (when the kids allow!) โ come rain or very occasional shine.
Sean Harkin leads AI and machine learning in the wealth and insurance division of Lloyds Banking Group. He has previously held senior roles in machine learning, data science and risk analysis in FinTech startups, financial services groups and consultancies. He has a PhD in causal inference and advanced statistical modelling. He will shortly be taking up a new role as Agentic AI Principal, working across divisions of Lloyds Banking Group.
Wendy has been with Acumen Financial Planning for seven years, moving from paraplanning to financial planning. Based in Edinburgh, she works with clients to understand what they want from life and helps them build a plan to make it happen. Alongside her planning work, she has been involved in researching and implementing AI solutions, something she believes has real value for the profession and the people it looks after.
Hajar Mozaffar is a Senior Lecturer in Innovation within the Business School, bringing a decade of valuable professional experience to her academic role. Prior to embarking on her teaching and research career, she had years of experience in management and consultancy, specializing in large-scale IT implementation projects. Holding a background in software engineering (BSc and MSc degrees), Hajar further expanded her academic life with a Ph.D. in Innovation and Information Systems from the University of Edinburgh Business School in 2013. Her expertise lies in the intricate interplay between Information Systems and various disciplines, including Innovation Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Organisation Studies. With a passion for cutting-edge topics, Hajar's current research pursuits revolve around digital transformation, digital innovation, and the significant role of intermediaries in fostering open and user innovation, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI).
Raluca holds a PhD in Management Science from University of Strathclyde, and an MSc in Informatics for Business from Babeศ-Bolyai University. She has a long held interest in information technology and its role in transforming organising and organisations. This has led to work on topics as different as trust and transaction costs in electronic markets, institutionalisation processes in technology standardisation, the costs and benefits associated with process innovation, and more recently legitimation strategies for innovation, tensions in digital transformation, and approaches to innovation in digital firms. Research interests include: how organisations leverage new technologies to develop new products and services and the challenges associated with managing the development of new forms of digital/AI enabled products and services how organisations legitimize new technologies / innovations to ensure their acceptance, and how such efforts are reflected in the acceptance behaviour of their stakeholders the evolution of digital transformation projects in large and complex organisations how responsible and ethical innovation / AI is operationalized in practice.
We provided the research for a report, in conjunction with Parmenion, which reveals how far short of expectations many adviser platforms are falling. The research found that over the last 12 months, 88% of advisers needed to apologise to at least one of their clients on behalf of a platform, and that poor service delivery from platforms impacts 91% of advisers every day.
We provided the research for a report, in conjunction with Parmenion, which reveals how far short of expectations many adviser platforms are falling. The research found that over the last 12 months, 88% of advisers needed to apologise to at least one of their clients on behalf of a platform, and that poor service delivery from platforms impacts 91% of advisers every day.
Service means a lot of things to a lot of different people. Itโs so subjective it can be hard to put your finger on. This paper aims to challenge the status quo and inertia thatโs built up in the sector for many years.
