AI Can Help With Your Finances, But There's A Big Gotcha

If you've been using an AI tool to think through retirement timing, Medicare options, or Social Security decisions, you're in good company. These tools are available around the clock, fluent on complicated topics, and genuinely useful for learning. But a recent CNBC interview with MIT finance professor Andrew Lo raises something worth knowing before you lean on one for real decisions: AI tools carry no fiduciary duty to you.

Here's what that means in practice. A licensed human financial advisor is legally required to act in your best interest. Violate that duty and they face regulatory penalties, civil liability, and in some cases criminal charges. AI doesn't operate under that structure. As Lo put it, AI tools "don't have the ability to suffer consequences if they make a mistake to the same degree that a human advisor does." Without accountability, he said, the idea of acting in your interest "has no teeth."

That's not a reason to stop using AI for financial questions. Lo was clear that these tools can be genuinely valuable for education, especially on topics like Medicare that are notoriously hard to parse. The distinction is between using AI to understand your options and treating it as a substitute for advice that carries legal accountability. Right now, AI is the first. It isn't the second. For decisions that affect your retirement security, a human advisor with fiduciary responsibility is still worth the conversation.

Were you aware that AI advisors are not required to act in your best interest?

Link to the article:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/06/ai-has-a-big-problem-when-it-comes-to-financial-advice-mit-professor.html