An adviser recently published four prompts that let you build your own financial plan with AI. They work better than most people expect. So here is the honest part: we use AI too.
Nobody in this industry should pretend otherwise. The question that matters is where a firm draws the line, and whether they will tell you where it is.
AI does the administrative work. That is the whole of it.
It drafts the notes from our meetings with you. It pulls figures from statements and reports so we can bring them into our systems, and a human checks each one before we use it. It moves information between the tools we run.
It drafts routine correspondence for speed and grammar, and nothing goes out unread. It writes some of the code behind the tools we build ourselves.
It does not decide anything. No recommendation leaves this office without a licensed adviser building it, checking it, and putting their name to it.
We are also careful about which tools we let near your information. Most AI tools available to the public do not handle data securely. Many send it overseas to be processed, use it to train themselves, or pass it on to someone else. We test every tool before we use it, and we would say the same to you: be very careful what you hand over.
The tools we do use are set up with our own context and guardrails, which means limits on what goes in and on what the tool is allowed to do with it. That reduces errors. It does not remove them, which is why a person still checks the work.
AI genuinely lowers the cost of producing advice. We are adopting it for exactly that reason, and we intend for clients to feel the benefit.
But cheaper production does not make an answer correct. The time we save goes back into what software cannot do, which is more contact with you and more regular check-ins.
That is a deliberate trade. Technology takes the admin. Our advisers take the strategy and relationship.
Run the four prompts and you will get a document. It will look like advice and be formatted like advice. But what it will not do is push back. It accepts your numbers at face value. It will not ask why your income dropped in 2023 or notice that you have understated your spending by a third.
Most of what we learn in a first meeting comes from the follow-up question. Not from the form.
AI tools are well documented for quoting out-of-date superannuation and tax figures without hesitation. Acting on last year's number can create a tax bill you did not plan for.
There is a real upside to these tools. They are fast, and they lower the barrier to understanding your own money. The risk sits right alongside it. Something that is right most of the time is dangerous when you cannot tell which time is which.
There is a second cost, too. To get a useful answer, you hand over your full financial position. It goes to a technology company whose data retention terms you have probably not read.
Ask AI about investment bonds and you will get a clear, confident explanation of how investment bonds work. Broadly, it will be right.
What it will miss is that no two are built the same. Internal tax rates differ. So do the fees, the investment options, and the rules about getting your money out. Those differences change the answer for you specifically, and sometimes they change it completely.
That holds across most product categories, not just bonds. The category is the easy part to explain. Which one suits your situation, and whether it suits you at all, is the part that takes work.
These tools are free right now for a reason. Building and running them is extraordinarily expensive, and the companies behind them are not charities.
Businesses across every industry are now discovering what these systems cost at scale. Those costs get passed on eventually. Anyone planning their finances around free AI advice is planning around a price that has not been set yet.
We would rather be upfront about that than sell you a saving that may not last.
Financial advice in Australia is licensed for a reason. We hold our own AFSL. We carry professional indemnity insurance. We answer to ASIC, and clients can take a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
If we get something wrong, you have somewhere to go and someone to hold to account. If a general-purpose AI tool gets it wrong, you have a chat history.
That is not a small difference.
Three questions, and each should get a straight answer in a sentence.
Do you use AI, and where in the process? What happens to my personal information when you do? Who checks the output before it reaches me?
Ours can answer all three. Any firm worth its fee should be able to.
We are not competing with the technology. We are using it, and we are being clear about where it stops.
So use AI to learn, to sharpen your questions, and to arrive better prepared. Then bring the plan it produced to someone who is licensed, insured and accountable for what happens next.