Ask an AI chatbot what to make for dinner, and a questionable suggestion might leave you ordering takeout. Ask what to do with your retirement savings, and the stakes are considerably higher.

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Artificial intelligence can make financial information easier to understand and more convenient to access. That is a meaningful benefit. But a clear, confident answer is not necessarily an accurate one, and even accurate information may not point to the right decision for you.

The opportunity is to use AI thoughtfully while keeping your financial advisor involved in decisions that affect your future.

Where AI Can Lend a Hand

Financial questions rarely arrive on a schedule. Maybe you are reviewing your benefits after dinner or wondering what a financial term means while reading the news. AI can offer an accessible, often inexpensive starting point.

A chatbot can explain diversification, compare basic account features, or walk through how compound interest works. You can ask follow-up questions, request simpler language, and revisit a topic until it feels more familiar. That can make learning less intimidating.

It can also help you get organized. Ask it to draft a household budget framework using hypothetical numbers, suggest questions for an advisor meeting, or explain the assumptions behind a savings illustration. These uses can help you participate more confidently in your financial planning.

Research from MIT and Stanford offers reasons for optimism, with qualifications. In a working paper using simulated financial lives, researchers found that AI guidance generally encouraged sensible saving and investing habits. However, results varied with users’ prompts, and the models struggled with some changing circumstances, including income shocks. These findings describe the tools and scenarios tested, rather than a guarantee about any chatbot’s performance.[i]

Where the Answers Can Fall Short

The first concern is accuracy. AI can produce information that is outdated, incomplete, or invented. A joint investor alert from the SEC, FINRA, and NASAA cautions against relying solely on AI-generated information for investment decisions. Even accurate inputs can produce faulty outputs.

That matters when an answer involves contribution limits, withdrawal rules, or tax treatment. A small factual error can change a decision. Check original sources, including the IRS or the relevant plan documents, and confirm which year the information applies to. A citation is useful only if the source exists and supports the claim.

The second concern is context. A chatbot may offer a reasonable answer to the question you typed while missing the question you needed to ask.

Consider: “Should I pay off my mortgage before retirement?” The answer may depend on your interest rate, available cash, taxes, investment risk, and how much flexibility you need. Your comfort with debt matters, too. Even a detailed prompt may leave out something consequential.

Calculations also deserve scrutiny. An AI-generated retirement projection may look precise, but its usefulness depends on both correct math and appropriate assumptions. Inflation, longevity, taxes, and market returns can materially change the result. An illustration can help you explore possibilities; it cannot promise an outcome.

Protecting Your Information

Personalization creates another challenge: sharing more information is not automatically a good idea. FINRA identifies privacy and data integrity among the concerns firms must consider when using generative AI.[ii]

For personal use, avoid putting Social Security numbers, passwords, account numbers, or unredacted financial documents into a general-purpose chatbot. Review the provider’s privacy and data-use policies. Use hypothetical figures when exploring concepts, and ask your advisor which secure channels to use for sensitive documents.

What a Human Advisor Adds

A financial advisor helps connect individual decisions to your broader plan. That means asking follow-up questions, evaluating tradeoffs, and revisiting recommendations as your circumstances change. It also means helping you pause when a headline or market swing makes a quick decision feel tempting.

Your advisor can help you when the decision involves substantial money, tax consequences, a major life change, or something difficult to reverse. Common examples include:

These situations involve interconnected decisions that general AI guidance may not adequately address. An advisor can help coordinate the financial pieces, while a qualified tax professional or attorney handles specialized tax or legal questions.

To dive deeper, while AI can explain what a Roth conversion is, but evaluating whether to convert, how much, and when requires a closer look at your situation. Your advisor can help assess the implications for your retirement plan and coordinate with your tax professional.

It is also worth talking to your advisor when you feel anxious, overwhelmed, or tempted to make a sudden move. Regulators specifically caution that chatbot conversations can contribute to impulsive or emotionally driven investment decisions.[iii]

Put AI to Work Thoughtfully

Use AI to learn unfamiliar terms, organize your thoughts, and prepare questions. Before acting, verify important facts and calculations, then discuss consequential decisions with your advisor, particularly when taxes, retirement income, or major life changes are involved.

At Larson Financial Group, we welcome those conversations. Bring us the question, the AI response, or the idea you would like to explore. We can help you evaluate how it fits with your goals and the rest of your financial life. You do not need to have everything figured out before reaching out.

[i] https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/half-americans-now-ask-ai-financial-advice-how-good-it

[ii] https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/notices/24-09

[iii] https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-alerts/artificial-intelligence-fraud