According to a 2024 Experian survey, 47% of respondents reported using AI tools to manage their personal finances. But when it comes to, say, planning your retirement, can chatbots really replace the wisdom of a good financial advisor?
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To put this question to the test, I asked ChatGPT to predict when I might retire based on my current finances, then had other large language models (LLMs) review its work. The chatbots’ responses ranged from the depressing to the hopeful. Here’s what they had to say.
Armed with my age, current savings, yearly 401(k) contributions, and estimated monthly retirement spending, ChatGPT painted a pretty bleak picture of my retirement. At the current rate, I could expect to hang my hat at age 92. Needless to say, the chances of taking a “normal” retirement seemed remote.
To bridge the gap between what I would need and what I currently have, it said I could:
Save more aggressively, and aim to put away $20,000 per year (easier said than done).
Adjust my lifestyle goals and aim to spend less when I retire.
Work part-time in retirement.
Factor in Social Security — something it didn’t advise me to do when it first asked me for my financial details.
When I told it my estimated Social Security benefits, it updated my retirement age to 80. Better, but still pretty grim.
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Microsoft Copilot was less direct than ChatGPT. Though I directly asked when I would retire, it didn’t provide an age and instead led with calculations for what I would need, what I would have, and how I could bridge the gap.
The advice was similar, but it advised me to aim to save $10,000 a year — a much more manageable number. When pushed and asked when it believed I could retire, it told me between 75 and 77, a number it revised down to 71 when I gave it my Social Security benefits estimate.
However, when I asked it to weigh in on ChatGPT’s answer, it capitulated like a little brother eager to please its older sibling. ChatGPT’s estimate that I’d achieve financial independence at 92 (81 with Social Security), it said, was “a mathematically sound estimate.”
As the only LLM that stated (repeatedly) that this was a question best left to a financial advisor, Google Gemini offered a level-headedness lacking its artificial intelligence brethren. Perhaps I’m biased, because Gemini also painted the rosiest picture of my retirement outlook, estimating I could hit my retirement goals at 74 — and could potentially even retire at the target age of 67 once Social Security was factored in.
