According to CNBC, a September report from Intuit Credit Karma reveals a massive shift in how people seek financial advice. The report found that 66% of American adults who have used a generative AI tool like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini have used it for financial advice. For Gen Z and millennials specifically, that share skyrockets to 82%. These users are tapping AI for everything from basic budgeting to complex tax planning and investment strategies. Courtney Alev, Intuit Credit Karma’s consumer financial advocate, acknowledged GenAI’s power for learning and planning but stressed that finances are “nuanced and deeply personal.” This comes as TIAA’s CEO also warns in an exclusive CNBC interview that AI risks ignoring the personal and emotional components of financial decisions.
The core problem with AI money managers
Here’s the thing: the numbers aren’t surprising, but the warnings from actual finance pros are incredibly telling. AI is fantastic at crunching data, parsing regulations, and spitting out generalized plans. But personal finance is, well, personal. It’s about life goals, risk tolerance shaped by personal experience, family dynamics, and sheer behavioral psychology. An AI doesn’t know if you’re prone to panic-selling during a market dip. It can’t sense the anxiety in your voice when you talk about retirement. As the TIAA CEO pointed out, it’s completely ignoring the emotional part. So while it might give you a mathematically optimal savings rate, it can’t coach you through the discipline needed to stick to it when you’d rather book a vacation. That human element is the entire foundation of trusted financial advising.
Who wins and who loses in this shift?
This trend creates clear winners and losers. The immediate winners are the big tech platforms embedding these tools—think Intuit itself, which can integrate AI across TurboTax, Credit Karma, and Mint. They get to offer a shiny, low-cost feature that attracts younger users. Robo-advisors also get a potential boost, as this normalizes algorithm-driven guidance. The losers? Traditional financial advisors who primarily handle straightforward, middle-class portfolios are facing massive disintermediation. Why pay a 1% fee for a basic plan an AI can draft in seconds? But look, this might actually benefit top-tier human advisors in the long run. Their value proposition shifts entirely to high-touch, behavioral coaching, complex estate planning, and hand-holding—the stuff AI truly can’t do. They become therapists and strategists, not just number-crunchers.
The inevitable human-AI mashup is coming
So where does this leave us? The future isn’t purely AI or purely human. It’s a hybrid model. We’ll likely see advisors using AI as a super-powered assistant to handle data analysis, scenario modeling, and paperwork, freeing them up to do the actual “advising” part—understanding client emotions and motivations. Basically, the advisor who refuses to use any AI tool will be at a disadvantage, but the one who tries to replace themselves entirely with an AI chatbot will fail. The real risk right now is for the individuals, especially young ones, taking AI output as gospel. It’s a tool for education and exploration, not execution. Would you let a Wikipedia article perform surgery on you? Using AI for financial ideas is fine, but acting on them without a reality check from a professional—or at least a massive dose of personal scrutiny—is a recipe for trouble.
