40% of Americans Use AI Chatbots for Financial Advice, but Trust Remains Low at Just 27%

AI chatbots are offering financial advice. Should you trust them?

Experts say AI can get personal finance fundamentals right but may struggle with nuanced questions. Kiichiro Sato/AP hide caption If you ask an AI chatbot for advice on how to revive your wilted tomato plant or for a movie recommendation, even a bad answer has pretty low stakes. Not true when your money is on the line. Still, some Americans are giving it a try. The data analytics company JD Power asked 4,000 people about their financial health and found that 40% of them had turned to AI in the prior three months to help manage their finances. More than a third of those using AI said they found the advice helpful in making smarter financial decisions, comparable to the share of those who found their bank's advice helpful. David Kendrick, a 53-year-old IT manager in Dayton, Ohio, uses ChatGPT so often for advice that he has started referring to it as "Chatty." He has asked it about everything from what to do with his home equity line of credit to how to handle his recent salary bump. Should he put more of that income toward paying off debt or direct it to his Roth IRA? Chatty suggested the Roth. Kendrick listened. He does see a human adviser once a year, but Kendrick said having access to advice anytime, as well as being reassured that his financial plans look OK, calms his financial anxiety. "I've always kind of had that, because my parents struggled," Kendrick said. "And this very much helped." Overall, Kendrick said, his finances are solid. But that's not necessarily true for the biggest group of people using AI for financial advice, according to the JD Power survey. The data firm labeled those people as "overextended," meaning they might be a bit over their budgets and have some debt. Those users reported asking chatbots questions about things like how to stretch their dollars, and they got back advice along the lines of skipping the name-brand cereal for the store version. Taha Choukhmane, an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, recently co-authored a paper -- not yet published -- that found that AI does well at giving fairly broad economic advice. "It tends to push people toward saving more, participating more in the stock market, de-risking as they get older," Choukhmane said. "It gets a lot of things right." In that study, the researchers got 1,000 adults to write prompts asking an AI model for advice. The team then simulated the lifetime effects of what would have happened if people had followed that advice, compared with what would have happened if they hadn't. Overall, they found, following the advice would have helped them end up with more savings. But the AI didn't always give advice that lined up with what human financial experts would suggest -- especially when dealing with more complicated requests, like how to handle a job loss. In that case, the AI suggested spending cuts that the researchers considered too harsh, and it didn't advise the user to dip into savings meant for tough financial moments. The researchers also felt it didn't give good advice on how to rebalance a portfolio. And they concluded that the AI suggested riskier financial moves for men than for women. Without enough information, AI can be confidently wrong Overall, finance experts think AI advice seems to work best for people whose questions fall on the two ends of the sophistication spectrum: for people asking very basic Finance 101 questions, and for power users who are prepared to hand over lots of data about their situation and craft detailed prompts. But, of course, people ask a lot of questions that are somewhere in between very basic and very detailed -- and in those cases, AI can make mistakes. Danielle Harrison, founder of Harrison Financial Planning in Columbia, Mo., decided to test an AI model. She told it about her husband joining her firm and asked how they should structure their business. "It gave an answer that it was sure about. It was like, 'You need to be an S corporation,'" she recalled. That's a type of business with some tax advantages. But Harrison kept prodding the AI and giving it more info. "It completely changed tunes by the end of it," she said, instead telling her that she needed to form an LLC, another type of company. "If I had not had that background knowledge, it would have given me the wrong information," Harrison said. AI models can make up sources -- a phenomenon called "hallucination" -- or make incorrect assumptions about someone's situation. Sharon Bloodworth, the CEO of White Oaks Wealth Advisors, which has offices in Minneapolis and Sarasota, Fla., said that in her experience, AI is wrong more than it's right. But she also expects AI to only get better in the future and said that it presents an opportunity to offer financial planning advice to people who don't have access to human advisers. "Ignoring it would be almost like saying, 'Don't pick up a calculator' or 'Don't get into a car, and just still ride a horse,'" she said. For all his enthusiasm for AI-driven financial advice, Kendrick, the IT manager in Ohio, is still careful about his interactions with Chatty. He doesn't give the AI model direct access to his financial accounts, just copies. And he knows not to take its advice as gospel, because AI models can be sycophantic, telling users what they want to hear. Kendrick said whenever the AI starts calling all his ideas great, he sets it on track. "I'm like, 'Hey, quit that. You got to be real with me,'" Kendrick said.

20% of Americans are already using AI for financial advice -- another 70% don't trust it | Fortune

Some U.S. adults are using artificial intelligence for financial guidance, but it's far from the most trusted source of advice, according to a new Gallup survey conducted in partnership with Edward Jones, a financial services firm. About 1 in 5 Americans who have sought financial advice in the past year turned to AI, the survey found. But among U.S. adults overall, only about 3 in 10 have "a great deal" or "some" confidence in its expertise for managing money, according to the survey, including just 3% who trust AI "a great deal." The poll, which was conducted in the spring and looked at the views of adults who are at least 21, found a disconnect between the resources Americans trust for financial advice and the ones they actually rely on. About 8 in 10 U.S. adults have at least "some" confidence in financial advisers. But only about one-third of U.S. adults who sought financial advice turned to a professional financial adviser, with far more, 73%, saying they relied on their own internet research. As the use of AI increases, financial experts say consumers should be cautious about fully trusting these tools. Using AI as a tool at the start of a learning journey and then combining this knowledge with other trusted sources can be the best way to engage with new and traditional financial guidance tools, said Taha Choukhmane, associate professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "I would encourage people to use AI to explain and define," Choukhmane said. "If you're interested in knowing what the stock market is, what the difference between a mutual fund and an index fund is. Using AI to explain these concepts can be very useful because it can empower people to get the most out of these methods." Most Americans have sought financial guidance from at least one source in the past year, the survey found. In addition to those who said they used internet research, financial advisers, or AI, 35% went to a parent, sibling, or relative, while 26% got information from news, media or social media. About 2 in 10 said they turned to a friend or an author, speaker, or influencer, and fewer relied on an employer or retirement plan provider, a robo-advisor or a teacher or professor. Younger generations are more likely to say they've used AI for financial advice, while older adults are more likely to have turned to a professional financial adviser. Affordability can often deter younger adults from hiring a financial adviser. While doing research online, asking family and friends and using AI can have minimal costs, hiring a professional can require a bigger financial commitment. About a quarter of Gen Z and millennial adults who looked for financial advice in the past year went to AI, compared to 16% of Gen Xers and just 7% of baby boomers. But while only 14% of Gen Z adults and 21% of millennials who sought guidance turned to a professional financial adviser, that rose to 34% of Gen X adults and about half, 55%, of baby boomers. Since AI interacts with specific user prompts, the advice can vary depending on how questions are asked. But asking general questions about personal finance can help people understand complex financial terms. Choukhmane also recommends asking AI to provide references to trusted sources to verify the information provided. While AI can be utilized for research, some financial experts are skeptical about the legal responsibilities of the technology. Certified financial planners have a legal responsibility to give the most fitting advice while AI tools don't. Ultimately, the decisions a person makes based on AI advice are their responsibility. "Fiduciary responsibility is very real," said Bobbi Rebell, certified financial planner and founder of Financial Wellness Strategies. "There's no AI that is a fiduciary. It doesn't really know your life; it's not asking you all the questions." ___ Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, AP's editor for polling and surveys, contributed to this report from Washington. ___ The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism. ___ The poll of 5,075 U.S. adults ages 21 and older was conducted March 20-April 6, 2026, using a sample drawn from Gallup's probability-based panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for U.S. adults overall is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.

Some adults use AI for financial advice, but trust is still low, Gallup poll finds

About one in five Americans who have sought financial advice in the past year turned to AI, the survey found. But among U.S. adults overall, only about three in 10 have "a great deal" or "some" confidence in its expertise for managing money, according to the survey, including just 3% who trust AI "a great deal." The poll, which was conducted in the spring and looked at the views of adults who are at least 21, found a disconnect between the resources Americans trust for financial advice and the ones they actually rely on. About eight in 10 U.S. adults have at least "some" confidence in financial advisers. But only about one-third of adults who sought financial advice turned to a professional financial adviser. Far more, 73%, said they relied on their own internet research. As the use of AI increases, financial experts say consumers should be cautious about fully trusting these tools. Using AI as a tool at the start of a learning journey and combining this knowledge with other trusted sources can be the best way to engage with new and traditional financial guidance tools, said Taha Choukhmane, associate professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

40% of People Use Chatbots for Financial Guidance. Here's the Context Mistake That Makes Them Give Terrible Advice

People will ask their chatbots anything these days, from dating or career advice to whether a particular type of wild mushroom looks edible. So it's no surprise that they're turning to generative AI for financial insights, too. Still, you might be surprised by how common it is. The data analytics firm JD Power recently polled 4,000 consumers about whether they'd sought personal financial help from AI within the past three months, and 40 percent of respondents said yes. Among that group, the top use-cases were price comparison (24 percent), finding discounts or deals (22 percent) and identifying new ways to make or save money (21 percent). Still, the percent that found the AI "somewhat" or "significantly" helpful was low, at only 27 percent. And helpfulness -- or lack thereof -- isn't the only reason to be hesitant about leaning on AI for financial insights. These tools can be quite useful, experts say, but only in certain circumstances and within specific guardrails. On one hand, the tech isn't as dangerous as a full-on AI skeptic might be inclined to think. Taha Choukhmane, an associate professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, recently told NPR that artificial intelligence tools are actually pretty good at giving people big-picture financial advice. "It gets a lot of things right," Choukhmane said, such as encouraging stock market participation and carefully saving money. But his research suggests that when it comes to more complicated financial scenarios -- such as re-balancing an investment portfolio or responding to lay-offs -- the AI didn't always give the same advice that a human expert would. Sometimes it was too conservative in its recommendations; other times, too risky. In one scenario, it gave men different advice than women. Indeed, this technology -- which is conversational in nature and often requires prompting to narrow down its insights -- is often only as good as the human who's using it.

Few Americans confident in financial advice from AI: Gallup

As artificial intelligence's influence continues to grow in the United States, fewer Americans trust the technology's financial advice, with only social media influencers falling below it. A new Edward Jones-Gallup poll released Wednesday showed only 27 percent of respondents had "some" or "a great deal" of trust in AI as a source of financial guidance, but 73 percent trusted it "not much" or "none at all." Americans were most confident in financial advisors with 79 percent trusting the professionals "some" or "a great deal." The lowest category was social media influencers with 86 percent of Americans having "not much" or "none at all" trust in the group. Among Americans who have sought financial advice, 18 percent received advice from artificial intelligence tools while 73 percent used their own internet research. "AI seems to be nudging people in the right direction," Tim de Silva, an assistant professor of finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, said in an interview about his paper on AI use for financial advice. "It's not perfect, but it's better than the way many people make decisions, such as talking to friends and family or doing simple internet searches. "That's not something that should be taken for granted: It's not at all obvious LLMs would provide good financial advice, because the way they are trained has nothing to do with that objective," he continued. The poll arrives at a time when AI is beginning to replace customer service jobs. Uber cut about 10 percent of its customer support team, while Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff credited AI with allowing the company to remove 4,000 customer support roles. American optimism in the technology has generally declined with another Gallup poll reporting that 39 percent believe AI does more than good. This follows a July incident at OpenAI where two of its newest models gained access to the internet and broke into Hugging Face's database in what the company called an "unprecedented" event. A new employee-led initiative, which asks the U.S. government to "deliberately pace" frontier AI development, has gained traction and is now backed by Anthropic and OpenAI. The Edward Jones-Gallup survey took place between March 20 and April 6. It surveyed 5,075 American adults with a margin of sampling error of 1.8 percentage points.

ChatGPT Is Now Giving Out Personal Finance Advice. Here's Where It Can Go Really Wrong.

AI chatbots fall short in nuanced situations; one of the central risks of using AI for financial guidance is that the tool can confidently hallucinate, or invent sources and information. Turning to AI for financial advice? You're not alone. However, experts urge caution when tapping into the technology for consequential decisions. Finance experts recently told NPR that AI tends to be useful at two extremes. On the one hand, it can handle basic finance questions reasonably well. On the other hand, it can be helpful for experienced users who know how to provide detailed personal information and write highly specific prompts. The problem is that many real-life financial questions fall within a gray area somewhere in the middle. Those situations can be more nuanced, and that's where AI can get things wrong. Danielle Harrison, founder of Harrison Financial Planning in Columbia, Missouri, put an AI model to the test after her husband joined her firm. She asked how the two should structure the business. At first, the tool was emphatic: "You need to be an S corporation," it told her, referring to a business structure that can offer certain tax advantages. But as Harrison continued the conversation and supplied more details, the AI reversed its recommendation. It ultimately said they should form an LLC instead. "If I had not had that background knowledge, it would have given me the wrong information," Harrison told NPR. That is one of the central risks of using AI for financial guidance. The tool can confidently hallucinate, or invent sources and information. It can also make flawed assumptions because it lacks key details about a person's circumstances. AI is improving Sharon Bloodworth, CEO of White Oaks Wealth Advisors, which has offices in Minneapolis and Sarasota, Florida, said AI has been wrong more often than right in her experience. Still, she believes the technology will improve and could eventually expand access to financial guidance for people who cannot afford or easily find a human adviser. "Ignoring it would be almost like saying, 'Don't pick up a calculator' or 'Don't get into a car, and just still ride a horse,'" she told NPR. Many Americans are turning to AI for help with their finances. In a recent JD Power financial health survey of 4,000 people, 40% said they had used AI to manage their money in the previous three months. More than one-third said the guidance helped them make better financial decisions, a share on par with people who said their bank's advice was useful. For David Kendrick, a 53-year-old IT manager in Dayton, Ohio, ChatGPT has become a regular part of his financial routine. He uses it so often that he has given it a nickname: "Chatty." Kendrick has asked Chatty about everything from managing his home equity line of credit to deciding what to do with a recent raise. Should he use the extra income to pay down debt, or put it into his Roth IRA? Chatty recommended the Roth. Kendrick took the advice. He still meets with a human financial adviser once a year. But he says the ability to ask questions whenever they come up has eased some of his long-running money worries. "This very much helped," he told NPR.

Americans Still Don't Trust AI With Their Money

The generational differences are worth watching as 26% of Gen Z and 25% of millennials have already used AI for financial guidance, compared to just 7% of baby boomers. Younger investors are clearly more comfortable incorporating AI into their financial lives, even if they aren't fully replacing human advice. That distinction matters. Clients may increasingly use AI before they call an advisor, much like they Google symptoms before visiting a doctor. The first conversation may no longer start with, "What should I do?" but rather, "AI suggested this, what do you think?" That shifts part of the advisor's role from being the primary source of information, to becoming the interpreter, validator, and strategist. Whether clients begin with a Google search, an advisor's website, or a chatbot, AI is increasingly woven into the experience. The question is no longer whether clients will encounter AI -- it's whether they'll have someone who can help them evaluate what it's telling them. The takeaway isn't that advisors need to compete with AI for answers. It's that clients will increasingly arrive with more answers -- and more questions. Information is increasingly a commodity. Trust remains a differentiator. Image: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Some use AI for financial guidance but few trust it, Gallup poll finds - The Korea Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Some U.S. adults are using artificial intelligence for financial guidance, but it's far from the most trusted source of advice, according to a new Gallup survey conducted in partnership with Edward Jones, a financial services firm. About 1 in 5 Americans who have sought financial advice in the past year turned to AI, the survey found. But among U.S. adults overall, only about 3 in 10 have "a great deal" or "some" confidence in its expertise for managing money, according to the survey, including just 3 percent who trust AI "a great deal." The poll, which was conducted in the spring and looked at the views of adults who are at least 21, found a disconnect between the resources Americans trust for financial advice and the ones they actually rely on. About 8 in 10 U.S. adults have at least "some" confidence in financial advisers. But only about one-third of U.S. adults who sought financial advice turned to a professional financial adviser, with far more, 73 percent, saying they relied on their own internet research. As the use of AI increases, financial experts say consumers should be cautious about fully trusting these tools. Using AI as a tool at the start of a learning journey and then combining this knowledge with other trusted sources can be the best way to engage with new and traditional financial guidance tools, said Taha Choukhmane, associate professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "I would encourage people to use AI to explain and define," Choukhmane said. "If you're interested in knowing what the stock market is, what the difference between a mutual fund and an index fund is. Using AI to explain these concepts can be very useful because it can empower people to get the most out of these methods." Most Americans have sought financial guidance from at least one source in the past year, the survey found. In addition to those who said they used internet research, financial advisers, or AI, 35 percent went to a parent, sibling, or relative, while 26 percent got information from news, media or social media. About 2 in 10 said they turned to a friend or an author, speaker, or influencer, and fewer relied on an employer or retirement plan provider, a robo-advisor or a teacher or professor. Younger generations are more likely to say they've used AI for financial advice, while older adults are more likely to have turned to a professional financial adviser. Affordability can often deter younger adults from hiring a financial adviser. While doing research online, asking family and friends and using AI can have minimal costs, hiring a professional can require a bigger financial commitment. About a quarter of Gen Z and millennial adults who looked for financial advice in the past year went to AI, compared to 16 percent of Gen Xers and just 7 percent of baby boomers. But while only 14 percent of Gen Z adults and 21 percent of millennials who sought guidance turned to a professional financial adviser, that rose to 34 percent of Gen X adults and about half, 55 percent, of baby boomers. Since AI interacts with specific user prompts, the advice can vary depending on how questions are asked. But asking general questions about personal finance can help people understand complex financial terms. Choukhmane also recommends asking AI to provide references to trusted sources to verify the information provided. While AI can be utilized for research, some financial experts are skeptical about the legal responsibilities of the technology. Certified financial planners have a legal responsibility to give the most fitting advice while AI tools don't. Ultimately, the decisions a person makes based on AI advice are their responsibility. "Fiduciary responsibility is very real," said Bobbi Rebell, certified financial planner and founder of Financial Wellness Strategies. "There's no AI that is a fiduciary. It doesn't really know your life; it's not asking you all the questions." The poll of 5,075 U.S. adults ages 21 and older was conducted March 20-April 6, 2026, using a sample drawn from Gallup's probability-based panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for U.S. adults overall is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.