ChatGPT Is Giving Personal Finance Tips — Where It Goes Wrong

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.

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.