TL;DR:

AI can run the numbers. What it can't do is know what numbers to ask for—and the ones you leave out are almost always the ones that matter. This is what I found when I actually tried it.

I Tried It So You Don't Have To

I want to be upfront: I went into this experiment rooting for AI.

I'm tired of financial planning being this gatekept, jargon-heavy, intimidating thing that makes smart people feel dumb. If AI can democratize some of that? Great. Let's go.

So I sat down and tried to build a real retirement plan using AI tools. Not to prove a point. Just to see what happened.

Here's what happened.

The Prompt You Think You Need Isn't the One That Works

I started with the basics—age, income, assets, debt, when I want to retire. Reasonable, right? The output I got back was... fine. Technically correct in a very generic, didn't-actually-know-anything-about-me kind of way.

It was like asking a doctor "am I healthy?" and handing them your height and weight. They can say something. They just can't say anything useful.

So I Built the Real Prompt

A retirement analysis that would actually tell you something requires: income sources (plural, including bonuses and RSUs and maybe some consulting you do on the side), asset details, tax picture, spending habits, where you think you might want to live in retirement, Social Security timing, healthcare costs before and after Medicare, what happens if you need long-term care, whether you actually stay invested when markets tank or quietly move everything to cash and hope nobody notices.

By the time I was done, the prompt was the length of a legal document.

And here's the thing—I knew what to include. I do this for a living. Most people would hand over the basics and assume that was enough.

What the AI Got Right

The modeling, once I gave it everything? Actually pretty solid. Probability ranges for different retirement scenarios, inflation stress tests, some useful Roth conversion framing.

If you've never had access to that kind of analysis, it's genuinely useful to see. It's not nothing.

What It Couldn't Do

It couldn't ask me what it didn't know to ask.

It didn't know that someone who says "I'm fine with market volatility" on a questionnaire is sometimes the same person who calls me in a panic when their portfolio drops 20%. It didn't know about the informal family bank—the kid who might need help, the parent who might need more. It couldn't look me in the eye and say "I'm a little worried about this piece, let's talk about it."

Those things aren't edge cases. They're the whole job.

So—Can AI Replace Your Financial Advisor?

For some basic orientation and scenario modeling? It can do real work. I'd rather you use it than stare at nothing.

For the actual judgment calls—what to prioritize, how to sequence things, what you're not thinking about that you should be—that's still a human conversation. Not because I'm protecting my turf. Because the math is the easy part, and nobody tells you that.

People Also Ask

Is AI financial advice accurate?

Within what you give it, yes. The problem is that most people don't know what they're leaving out—and the gaps are usually the important parts.

What can AI do for financial planning?

It can model scenarios, run projections, and give you directional clarity. It's a strong starting point. It's not a plan.

What's missing from AI financial planning?

Context, judgment, and the questions you didn't think to ask. Also: someone to notice when you're about to make a decision that sounds fine on paper and isn't.

Should I use AI for retirement planning?

Use it to learn, to orient yourself, to ask questions. Then sit down with someone who can tell you what you're missing. Ideally before you need to know.

How is a financial advisor different from AI planning tools?

The tools are good at math. An advisor is good at knowing which math matters—and what's driving the decisions behind the numbers.

The Bottom Line

The tools are going to keep getting better. Honestly, good — I want them to. But "better at computing" and "better at knowing what to compute" are different problems. One of them is being solved. The other one still needs a person.

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