If you’ve been planning your retirement at any point over the last few years, you’ve probably sat across from a financial advisor at some point, not understanding a word of what they’re saying. They’ve thrown words at you like “diversified portfolio” and “risk-adjusted returns,” and you’ve nodded along, feeling a bit silly because you haven’t got a clue what any of them mean.
This was exactly the scenario I found myself in only a couple of weeks ago. I ended up walking away wondering if any of that advice was actually for me, or for their commission. And I know I’m not alone.
Millions of people pay thousands every year for financial advice that turns out to be generic, overly cautious, or shaped by what earns the advisor the biggest payout. And the worst part? Most people don’t even realize it’s happening.
But it turns out, AI has become incredibly good at financial planning. Unlike travel planning, which can sometimes send you to non-existent places, it can do the job better, faster, and for a fraction of the cost.
Recently, I used AI to help me win a travel insurance claim where the company I had the policy with was being less than helpful. It took all my emotion out of it and gave me solid advice, wrote my emails for me, and I got results almost immediately.
My point is that there is a time and a place for AI. Hell, they’re even using it to conduct surgery, so it can’t all be bad, and it’s not. The key, as with most things, is knowing how to use it.
When the toaster first came onto the scene, many people wouldn’t touch it, thinking it would never catch on and that it wasn’t safe. Well, look how that turned out. Do you have a toaster in your kitchen? I certainly do, along with millions of others.
So I guess the big question is, can you trust AI to give you the right advice for your retirement? Well, I’ve been running some tests, and the results have been looking pretty good.
The Real Cost of a Financial Advisor
Before we get into how it all works and whether or not you should use AI as your financial advisor, it helps to understand what you’re actually paying for.
Most financial advisors charge around 1% of your assets under management every year. That doesn’t sound like very much, but trust me, that adds up to a substantial amount of money.
If you have $300,000 invested and your advisor charges 1% annually, that’s $3,000 a year. Over 20 years, assuming your portfolio grows, you could end up paying well over $100,000 in fees. That’s money that could have been compounding in your own account.
And here’s the thing that shocks most people. The majority of financial advisors in the US are not fiduciaries, meaning they’re not legally required to act in your best interest. They’re only required to recommend products that are “suitable” for you, which is a much lower bar and leaves a lot of room to recommend whatever earns them the best commission.
You also have to add in the human factor. Advisors make emotional decisions. They panic during market downturns, oversimplify, and have bad days. There’s also research showing that financial advisors experienced significant psychological stress symptoms after the 2008 market crash, including anxiety, sleep problems, and a crisis of confidence in their own strategies. That stress doesn’t disappear when they sit down with your retirement plan.
This isn’t to say every advisor is acting in bad faith. Many are excellent. But the system itself isn’t designed with your interests at the center, and that matters.
Why You Should Use AI To Plan Your Retirement
AI doesn’t earn commission, it doesn’t have a bad day, although some days I do wonder. It doesn’t steer you toward a product because it pays out better than the alternative.
What it does do is process an enormous amount of financial data quickly, run multiple scenarios at once, and give you consistent, unbiased information every single time you ask.
While I don’t think it writes well at all and makes everyone sound the same, it’s an absolute whizz kid with numbers and complicated data.
Where else can you get a 24-hour assistant that can work at the speed of light, well, almost? I love that you can run a retirement scenario at 11 pm on a Sunday without booking an appointment two weeks in advance, and you’ll get the answer within a few minutes.
It doesn’t judge you. If you’re behind on savings and embarrassed to admit it to a human, AI gives you the same quality of information regardless. It will even say nice things to you when you’re having a bad day.
It’s consistent. Ask it the same question three months apart, and you’ll get the same quality of answer, not a different one depending on whether your advisor had a good week.
It’s cheap. Most AI tools cost anywhere from nothing to $20 a month. Compare that to thousands in annual fees.
It’s smart and constantly updated. AI tools are being trained specifically on financial planning data, which means the answers are getting sharper and more reliable every year.
The Tools to Use
Here are the tools I’ve tested and used to give me financial advice for my retirement planning.
ChatGPT and Claude
Both are general AI assistants that are excellent for asking financial planning questions, running through scenarios, and getting plain-English explanations of complex topics.
You can ask them things like “If I retire at 62 with $400,000 saved and need $3,500 a month, how long will my money last?” and get a detailed, personalized answer instantly.
Claude tends to be more cautious and detailed in its financial responses, while ChatGPT is a little more conversational. Try both and see which one you prefer. Both have free versions.
NewRetirement (now called Boldin)
Boldin is one of the most comprehensive AI-powered retirement planning tools available. You input your assets, income, Social Security estimates, and expected expenses, and it builds a detailed retirement projection for you.Â
It runs scenarios, flags potential shortfalls, and helps you model decisions, such as when to claim Social Security or whether to downsize your home. The free version is ok, but the paid version goes much deeper.
Personal Capital (now Empower)
Empower is a free tool that connects to your existing bank and investment accounts and gives you a real-time picture of your net worth, retirement readiness, and fee analysis.Â
The fee analyzer alone is worth signing up for. It will show you exactly how much you’re paying in hidden fund fees, which for most people is eye-opening.
Quicken Simplifi
Quicken Simplifi is a budgeting and financial tracking app with AI features that helps you understand your spending patterns and plan your retirement income needs. If you don’t know what you currently spend, you can’t plan for what you’ll need in retirement.
How to Actually Do It: A Simple Step-By-Step Process
This doesn’t need to be complicated. Here’s how to approach it.
Step 1: Understand where you are right now
Connect your accounts to a free tool like Empower and get a clear picture of your current net worth, what you owe, and what you own. You can’t plan a route if you don’t know your starting point.
Step 2: Define what retirement looks like for you
This is the part most people skip. Do you want to travel? Downsize? Work part-time? Stay close to family? Your retirement vision determines how much you actually need, and it’s different for everyone.Â
Use ChatGPT or Claude to help you think through it by asking, “Help me estimate my monthly retirement expenses if I plan to travel 3 months a year and live in a lower cost-of-living area.”
Step 3: Run your numbers through a dedicated planning tool
Use what you know to build your retirement projection in Boldin or a similar tool. Play with the variables. What happens if you retire two years later? What if you reduce your monthly spend by $500? These scenarios take seconds with AI and would take an advisor multiple meetings to work through.
Step 4: Use AI to fill the knowledge gaps
Not sure when to claim Social Security? Ask. Confused about the difference between a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA? Ask. Wondering whether it makes sense to pay off your mortgage before retiring? Ask. You’ll get a detailed, personalized answer without a consultation fee. Plus, you can ask as many questions as you like, including asking it to dumb down the answers without any judgment.
Step 5: Review regularly
Set a reminder every six months to revisit your numbers. Life changes, markets shift, and your plan should reflect that. This takes maybe an hour twice a year and keeps you on track without any ongoing advisor fees.
What AI Isn’t Good For
This is important, and it would be misleading not to include it.
AI is not a replacement for a professional in every situation. There are areas where you still need a human expert.
Complex estate planning. If you have significant assets, business interests, or want to set up trusts, a qualified estate attorney is essential. AI can help you understand the concepts, but it can’t draw up legal documents or advise on state-specific laws with the precision a lawyer can.
Tax situations are complex. If you have multiple income streams, own rental property, or have significant capital gains to manage, a CPA or tax professional is worth the cost. AI can explain tax strategy clearly, but it doesn’t have access to your full financial picture and shouldn’t be relied on for complex tax filing decisions.
Legal documents. Wills, powers of attorney, beneficiary designations. These need a legal professional. AI can explain what these documents do, but it can’t replace proper legal advice.
Emotional support during market volatility. When the market drops 20,% and your retirement savings take a hit, a good human advisor can talk you off the ledge and stop you from making panic-driven decisions. AI can give you rational information, but it can’t replace the human reassurance that sometimes matters more.
The smartest approach is to use AI for the heavy lifting of planning, monitoring, and scenario modeling, and bring in a specialist only when the situation genuinely calls for it. That might mean paying a fee-only financial planner for a one-off review once a year, which will cost far less than an ongoing 1% AUM arrangement.
A fee-only planner, by the way, charges a flat fee or hourly rate rather than a percentage of your assets. They have no incentive to steer you toward any particular product. If you do want a human in the mix at some point, that’s the type to look for. You can find them through the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.
The bottom line is this. Retirement planning used to require either expensive professional help or a lot of confusing DIY research. AI has changed that. The tools are here, they’re accessible, and for most people’s everyday planning needs, they work.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as personalized financial advice. Always consult with a qualified financial professional before making decisions about your retirement savings or investments.