Millions already use AI chatbots for financial advice, but experts warn of clear limits

Millions of people are already using chatbots like ChatGPT for retirement planning, the Financial Times reports. In a Lloyds Bank survey, more than half of respondents used AI for financial advice. However, experts point to clear limitations, including the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, which recently cautioned against AI hallucinations.

A test by Which? in November, for example, showed that popular chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Meta AI achieved overall scores of only 55 to 71 percent. Still, the pressure on the financial industry is significant: pension providers like Scottish Widows are now developing their own AI tools.

"I think that's the danger of AI is that people will assume they know what they don't," warns JPMorgan strategist John Bilton. According to Bilton, if users treat AI as an investment tool rather than a data tool, it risks making "underlying behavioural biases — such as the tendency to hold too much in cash or trade too often — stronger."

A counterexample is a 41-year-old software engineer who had ChatGPT restructure his entire $200,000 portfolio. ChatGPT advised him to diversify his risk exposure: 80 percent into a broad market equity index tracker and the remainder into a bond ETF. He told the Financial Times that speaking with the chatbot helped him to "commit to and actually execute" his plan.