The question of AI for financial advice has moved from abstract debate to something far more personal for many people working in and around the financial services industry. One writer at Money Marketing has set out, candidly, how her relationship with artificial intelligence shifted from scepticism to cautious reliance, and her conclusions carry a lesson for anyone thinking about where AI fits in a properly managed financial life.
From Scepticism to Selective Use
Her early encounter with ChatGPT left her unimpressed. The output was basic, the language stilted, and, crucially, no sources were given for the information it produced. For someone trained to weigh sources by their authority, that absence was disqualifying. She filed AI away as something to revisit later, even as colleagues such as FTRC founder Ian McKenna were investing serious time in learning how to use different platforms effectively.
What changed her view was watching her eldest son use AI to teach himself music production mixing and mastering, filling gaps his sixth-form college course had left. Seeing a practical, disciplined application persuaded her to try again, this time with a clear sense of purpose rather than idle curiosity.
She now uses AI for admin tasks, detailed product comparisons where photographs and retailer websites fall short, and as a form of critical-distance sounding board for personal decisions. She is candid that she could not do without it, but equally candid that she uses it within strict personal boundaries. It is the combination of the two that matters.
AI for Financial Advice: a Resource, Not a Replacement
Her view on AI for financial advice reflects the same logic a wealth manager would apply to any analytical tool: useful up to a point, but not a substitute for qualified human oversight. She would not trust AI in the same way she would trust a professional with relevant qualifications and experience. Where an adviser uses AI as a research and sense-checking resource, she finds that reassuring. The oversight is the point.
That distinction matters for savers and investors. The Guardian has written about people forming deep personal attachments to AI chatbots, which she links to a broader pattern of over-reliance that she finds troubling. The same risk exists in a financial context: an AI tool can surface information quickly, but it cannot weigh a client’s full circumstances, tax position, or sequence-of-returns risk the way a chartered planner can. Treating it as an oracle rather than a calculator is where things go wrong.
YouTube’s own AI moderation difficulties illustrate a related problem. Its automated system flagged human narrators of classic ghost story podcasts as producing inauthentic content, leading to periods of demonetisation that were only reversed after listener complaints. An algorithm confident in its own output, but wrong, is a reasonable description of the risk when AI is left without human review in any domain, finance included.
The FTRC has long argued for structured evaluation of financial technology tools, and the principle applies here. AI for financial advice works best as a layer within a process that a qualified person reviews and owns, not as the final word. Used that way, with clear purpose and boundaries, it is a genuine addition to the analytical toolkit. Used any other way, the confidence it projects can become the problem.
