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A recent call with a financial advisor in Pennsylvania is representative of a common question on artificial intelligence.
Welcome to the Retirement Learning Center’s (RLC’s) Case of the Week. Our ERISA consultants regularly receive calls from financial advisors on a broad array of technical topics related to IRAs, qualified retirement plans, and other types of retirement savings and income plans, including nonqualified plans, stock options, Social Security, and Medicare. This is where we highlight the most relevant topics affecting your business.
“Some of my clients are using artificial intelligence (AI) to research investments and financial-planning strategies. Are investors beginning to replace financial advisors with AI?”
According to current studies, no, you are not at risk of being replaced by AI. Recent data suggest that most investors are not simply choosing between AI and a financial advisor. Instead, many are using AI for preliminary research while continuing to rely on financial professionals for personalized recommendations, judgment, and implementation. Statistics show there is a clear opportunity to leverage AI to build your practice.
An HSBC survey of 9,993 affluent and high-net-worth investors aged 21 to 69, located in 10 markets and with minimum investable assets of either $100,000 or $2 million, depending on the survey category, revealed the following:
73 percent use AI for finance and investment-related purposes;
62 percent said their most recent investment idea came from financial professionals or financial institutions;
32 percent said their most recent investment idea came from AI;
37 percent identified financial professionals or institutions as the most influential factor in their last investment decision; and
Only 12 percent identified AI as the most influential factor in that decision.
The findings indicate that investors are becoming comfortable using AI as an information and research tool, but financial professionals remain much more likely to be the source of actionable investment ideas and strategies.
A 2025 Paris study had similar findings, where most investors were comfortable acting on financial advice generated by AI when a financial advisor first reviewed the recommendations. Comfort dropped substantially when investors were asked about implementing AI advice without human review. Investors were more likely to align their final investment decisions with advice from the human-AI collaboration, compared to pure AI, especially when faced with more risky investments. This increased reliance on human-AI collaborative advice led to higher material welfare for clients.
The distinction is especially important because an AI response may appear complete even though the system does not possess all the necessary facts to make an appropriate recommendation. AI produces information based on the facts it receives. It may not know which key facts are missing, and the investor may not know what additional information should be provided. Therein lies the advisor’s value add.
For example, an investor might ask an AI tool whether converting $300,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA is advisable. The response could accurately explain the general benefits and mechanics of Roth conversions but fail to account for key factors such as:
The client’s current and projected tax brackets;
Medicare income-related monthly adjustment amounts;
State income taxes;
Charitable-giving plans;
Required minimum distributions;
Net investment income tax exposure;
The taxation of Social Security benefits;
The client’s liquidity needs;
The surviving spouse’s future filing status; or
Other income or deductions expected during the year.
Advisors can position themselves as the professionals who help clients distinguish between general information and advice that is appropriate for their complete financial circumstances. The advisor’s value may include:
Identifying facts and risks omitted from an AI analysis;
Coordinating investment, retirement, tax, insurance, and estate-planning decisions;
Evaluating conflicting recommendations;
Helping clients avoid emotionally driven decisions;
Communicating with the client’s accountant, attorney, and other professionals;
Monitoring the recommendation over time; and
Assisting with implementation.
The advisor may need to demonstrate value by going beyond the general information a client can obtain independently. This can include asking better questions, recognizing competing objectives, explaining tradeoffs, coordinating implementation, and helping the client plan when there is no single mathematically correct answer.
AI is becoming an important source for financial information, but available studies do not show that investors have broadly replaced financial advisors with AI. The more likely future is a hybrid model in which investors use AI to obtain information and prepare questions while relying on financial professionals to provide context, personalization, judgment, coordination, and implementation.
For financial advisors, the practice-building opportunity is not to compete with AI as an information-retrieval system. It is to demonstrate the value that begins after the information has been produced.