Striver launches AI-powered client simulation platform

Yasmine Raso

Senior Journalist

15 July 2026

Striver has announced the ‘deployment’ of an artificial intelligence (AI)-built voice-based client simulation platform via Deakin University’s financial planning study program, designed to prepare students with the client-facing skills demanded by the financial planning profession.

The financial planning graduate and careers support program said in a statement that the platform, nicknamed Kait, directly addresses a view widely held by the profession that graduates “know the technical content, but they’ve never sat across from a client”.

The software enables financial planning students to have “genuine fact-finding conversations” with the AI client across a broad range of personas and scenarios and is intended to better prepare them for future positions by developing their listening, questioning and relationship skills.

The software is integrated with Xplan to reduce further administrative workload, with every session uploaded straight into the platform.

“The profession deserves tools that work wherever advisers work,” Striver’s founder and CEO, Alisdair Barr, said.

“The profession has been asking for client-ready graduates for years. We stopped waiting for someone else to fix it.

“Kait is what practice-ready actually looks like – and our ambition is for every financial planning educator in Australia to be using it.”

Striver said its partnership with Deakin University to launch Kait into its study program has opened a “direct line from campus to practice”, delivering students a “unique edge” on their way to graduation and in their career.

“Kait gives our students large scale, repeatable client experiences in a variety of settings, from wherever they choose to study – before they graduate,” Marc Olynyk, Financial Planning Course Director at Deakin University, said.

“It offers continued flexibility to ensure we remain at the forefront of student-first learning.”