AI is everywhere right now — and personal finance is no exception. Plenty of people are already typing financial questions into ChatGPT or similar tools, looking for guidance on everything from investing to tax strategy. But how good is that advice, really? And could AI eventually replace a financial advisor altogether?
To find out, one of our planners at Align Wealth ran an experiment. Using an AI tool, the prompt was simple: act as one of the best financial planners in Canada, interview me like a real discovery meeting, and give me a real financial plan. The subject? A fictional chiropractor — 39 years old, incorporated, married with two kids, running a practice in Edmonton with a goal of reaching financial independence around age 55.
The first question the AI asked was genuinely impressive: What does financial success look like to you personally? That's not a bad opener. From there, it covered a lot of the basics — age, family situation, business structure, assets, liabilities, insurance, and estate planning. For a first pass, it was a reasonable starting point.
On the recommendations side, the AI correctly flagged the absence of a will and power of attorney as urgent. It noted potential underinsurance on the disability side, the gap in critical illness coverage, and suggested connecting the goal of financial independence with the idea of eventually bringing on an associate — which showed some thoughtful planning logic.
Here's where things get interesting. About half the recommendations were reasonable. The other half? Not so much.
The AI suggested $500,000 of critical illness coverage with no explanation of where that number came from. For the average chiropractor in this scenario, that's likely way too high. Meanwhile, it didn't flag that $500,000 of term life insurance for a 39-year-old with two kids, a mortgage, and a business is probably not enough coverage. That's a meaningful miss.
Other recommendations — like optimizing salary and dividend mix from the corporation, or income splitting with a spouse — sounded good on the surface but came with no real substance. No numbers, no context, no explanation of the tax rules involved or how to actually implement them. For someone without a financial planning background, those recommendations could lead to a false sense of security or, worse, a bad decision.
The core limitation of AI-generated financial advice isn't that it's always wrong — it's that it sounds right even when it isn't. The output is confident, clearly written, and well-organized. That's actually what makes it potentially dangerous in the wrong hands.
Personal finance is, by definition, personal. Two chiropractors who look almost identical on paper — same age, same income, same family structure — might need completely different recommendations based on their values, their relationship with risk, their goals for the practice, and what kind of life they're actually trying to build. AI doesn't ask about any of that at the depth that matters.
A useful analogy here: there's a medical database tool that doctors use to look up diagnoses and medications. In the hands of a trained physician, it's incredibly powerful. In the hands of someone with no medical background, it could be harmful. The same principle applies to AI-generated financial plans.
None of this means AI is without value — far from it. Used as a thought partner, it can help you start asking the right questions, get a rough lay of the land, and spark conversations with a partner or another professional. It can also be a legitimate planning tool for simpler financial situations where personalized advice isn't accessible.
For financial planners, AI has already become a core part of how we work — taking detailed meeting notes, building client summaries, making sure nothing falls through the cracks between appointments. It's made the planning process more thorough and the client experience better.
But replacing the human element of a financial planning relationship? That's a different question entirely. The value of working with an advisor isn't just the recommendations — it's the ongoing relationship, the accountability, the ability to say hold on, let's think about this more carefully in a moment of market panic or a major life decision.
AI will continue to improve. The outputs will get better, the tools more sophisticated. But the prediction here is that human connection in financial planning won't become less valuable — it'll become more valuable, precisely because so much of daily life is increasingly automated.
The chiropractors who are building wealth and a lifestyle they love aren't doing it by following generic advice from a language model. They're doing it by working through their specific goals, their specific situation, and making intentional decisions with someone who knows their whole picture.
AI is a great tool. Use it, explore it, lean on it where it makes sense. Just don't confuse a well-written output for personalized financial advice.
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🌐 Learn more about Align Wealth → www.alignwealth.ca
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