15 questions people ask AI before hiring a financial advisor, and what answers them
I took 15 real questions Indian investors ask an AI assistant before hiring a financial advisor and checked whether 20 scanned wealth management sites actually answer them.
Before an investor picks up the phone, more of them are now asking an AI assistant first: is this advisor fee-only, are they SEBI registered, what do they actually charge. The answer an AI gives depends entirely on what is written, and marked up, on the advisor's own homepage.
I took the same 20 Indian wealth management and financial advisory homepages I scanned for the AI readability study and mapped them against 15 real questions an investor is likely to ask an AI before hiring an advisor. Below is each question, the fix that would let an AI answer it directly, and what I actually found.
The 15 questions, and the fix for each
State the SEBI RIA registration number in plain text on the homepage or about page, not buried in a PDF disclosure.
A registration number in a footer is easy for a human to miss and impossible for an AI to lift from a scanned document.
Say directly, in one plain sentence, whether the firm is fee-only, fee-based, or commission-based.
This is the single question every prospective client asks first, and it is the easiest one to answer clearly.
Publish the fee structure, flat fee or percentage of AUM, with real numbers or ranges, not just 'contact us for pricing'.
A vague pricing page reads to an AI engine the same way it reads to a skeptical prospect: as a dodge.
State the fiduciary commitment explicitly, ideally alongside the SEBI RIA registration that legally requires it.
Fiduciary duty is a fact worth stating, not implying.
List the minimum AUM or minimum portfolio size, or state clearly that there is no minimum.
Investors self-select before they call. An unstated minimum filters out fewer bad-fit leads, not more.
Clarify whether the firm sells mutual funds, insurance, or other products, or advises only, with no product sales.
This distinction is the core of the fee-only pitch, and it should not require reading between the lines.
Name the actual credentials, CFP, CFA, or equivalent, on the team or about page, not just 'experienced professionals'.
A credential named once on a page an AI can read is worth more than a wall of vague trust language.
Add a short, plain statement of how conflicts, like commissions on referred products, are disclosed or avoided.
Almost no firm in this scan addresses this directly, which leaves it to an AI to guess or stay silent.
Name the actual scope of service: comprehensive planning, investment-only management, or both.
Scope of service is a factual answer, not a marketing headline, and it should read like one.
State clearly whether the firm serves NRIs and what that service involves.
NRIs searching from abroad are exactly the audience most likely to ask an AI assistant first.
State the review cadence, quarterly or annually, rather than leaving it to onboarding conversations.
A concrete cadence is a small fact that builds real confidence in an AI generated answer.
Name the specific goals the firm plans for, not just 'holistic financial planning'.
Generic language forces an AI to guess whether a specific goal is actually covered.
Explain custody in plain terms: assets stay in the client's own demat or bank account, the advisor never holds funds directly.
Custody is often the biggest hidden fear for a new client, and it is rarely addressed on a homepage at all.
State assets under advice (AUM) or years in business as a real number, if it can be disclosed.
A real number, even a modest one, reads as more credible to both people and AI engines than 'trusted by many'.
Lay out the onboarding steps in a short numbered list an AI can lift directly.
A clear first step lowers the friction between an AI recommendation and an actual phone call.
What I found scanning 20 wealth management firm sites
Scanning the same 20 sites for AI readability gave a median score of 88, with 14 of the 20 grading an A. This is a strong vertical: financial advisors, working in a trust and compliance heavy business, mostly build pages a machine can read.
But readable is not the same as answerable. Seventeen of the 20 sites publish structured data and have a median score of 89, while the three without it collapse to a median of 57. Only 4 of the 20 have FAQ schema, the one format built to let an AI lift a direct answer to a question like the 15 above.
The pattern under all 15
The firms that answer these questions well do it in structured, plain text: the fee model stated in one sentence, the SEBI RIA number shown, the minimum portfolio size named without a form to fill out first.
The firms that miss tend to hide the same answers in glossy brochures, downloadable PDFs, or vague prose built for a browsing human rather than a reading machine, and an AI engine generally cannot lift an answer from either.
Frequently asked questions
Why do investors ask an AI assistant before hiring a financial advisor?
It is faster than reading five different websites, and it feels neutral. But an AI assistant can only answer with what a firm's own site states clearly, which is exactly why the 15 questions above matter.
Which of these 15 questions do wealth management sites answer worst?
Based on this scan, fee model and SEBI registration are usually stated somewhere, but conflicts of interest, custody, and onboarding steps are the ones most often left vague or missing entirely.
Does having FAQ schema actually change what an AI assistant says about a firm?
FAQ schema does not guarantee a citation, but it gives an AI engine a structured, direct answer to lift instead of forcing it to infer one from prose. In this scan only 4 of 20 firms use it, so most are relying on inference.
What is the fastest way to check if my own advisory site answers these questions?
Run it through the free Report Card tool on this site. It checks the same structural signals, structured data, headings, FAQ schema, that this scan measured across the 20 firms.