New research challenges the assumption behind much of the advice industry’s angst about the impact of artificial intelligence that AI use is a symptom of an advice gap and people turn to a chatbot because they can’t afford, or can’t access, a human adviser.
The CoreData/Conexus Financial Best Possible Retirement research has found that across the broad market, 34 per cent of pre-retirees and retirees have used a generative AI tool such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude for general inquiries, and the use is much more common among the young and the not-yet-retired.
Just less than half of pre-retirees (49.6 per cent) have used a generative AI tool, against 20.7 per cent of retirees. Usage falls steadily with age, from 55.9 per cent of 45 to 49 year olds to 13.5 per cent of those aged 70 and over.
Awareness of the technology and its take-up is inevitably spilling into the advice space, and the research shows that people with an adviser are more likely to have used a generative AI tool than unadvised people, 38.1 per cent versus 32.9 per cent.
In other words, having an adviser does not deter clients from using AI, and AI is not replacing advisers. AI use in fact may correlate with someone’s advised status, since advised clients tend to be more engaged with their financial planning generally.
Calculators, dashboards and tools
Advised super fund members are more likely to have used their fund’s online calculators, dashboards and comparison tools than unadvised members, 47.7 per cent versus 33.1 per cent, the study says.
Most people are using AI to explore their options, not to replace their adviser. AI users who apply the tool to explore super or retirement issues most commonly use it to estimate retirement needs, compare options and check information found elsewhere.
“Walk into a planning meeting with someone in their late 40s/50s and there’s a decent chance they’ve already asked ChatGPT or Claude the same question you’re about to answer,” says CoreData research consultant Alana Devitt.
“That’s not competition for the adviser. Almost a quarter of the people using AI for retirement questions are using it to draft what they’ll ask their adviser next. It’s preparation, not replacement.”
While these are the sort of questions clients might previously have asked of their advisers, now they’re essentially doing “homework” to supplement adviser conversations, at a time and in a place that suits them outside of formal appointments.
Advised clients’ top answer for why they used AI in the first place was wanting to explore options, at 41.5 per cent, followed by convenience, and wanting information outside business hours. Difficulty accessing a person from their adviser’s practice was the least commonly cited reason, at 7.5 per cent.
The study suggests that the use of AI among advised clients isn’t a verdict on the adviser relationship. It’s closer to what happens when a client uses Google to check on a term or a concept, but with the additional personalisation benefits and advantages AI has over a simple Google search.
In AI we trust
However, the study shows advised clients trust AI somewhat more than unadvised clients do, with 67.2 per cent of advised and 63.1 per cent of unadvised clients trusting it at least a little.
Devitt says the reasons members give for for turning to AI “are really around convenience and speed, not dissatisfaction with the fund, [and] very few are actually citing distrust with their fund as a reason”.
The most common use of AI by retirees is to answer what the BPR says is the question their super fund cannot (or won’t): how long their money will last in retirement. More than a third (36 per cent) have used it for this, and around a quarter (26 per cent) have used it to understand what government support is available to them.
For super funds, there’s a stark warning in the BPR data. Among AI users who’ve asked about super or retirement, most rate AI’s answers as more useful than their own fund’s website, and among pre-retirees the gap is widest: 63.5 per cent found AI more useful, the study says.
Devitt says the main reason is that information provided by AI is “more digestible, easier to read and likely more personalised to the individual”.
“This kind of change in behaviour will really change member’s expectations of their fund. As they continue to get simple, accessible and clear information elsewhere, the pressure is on for funds to provide information in similar formats.”
On the measure that actually tests advice’s value, the study tells a different story. Only 41 per cent of pre-retirees understand how much money they’ll need to fund their retirement, the study says. Among advised pre-retirees, that figure jumps to 68 per cent.
Understanding of monthly income needs goes from 42 per cent among the general pre-retiree population to 70 per cent among the advised. Feeling connected to one’s financial future, an emotional measure that has fallen from 42 per cent in 2023 to just 33 per cent now among all pre-retirees, sits at 60 per cent among those who see an adviser.
The study suggests that AI is supplementing rather than supplanting advice relationships where they already exist, and that it is providing an avenue for unadvised individuals to ask questions that their funds cannot necessarily answer.
If anything, a client who is testing ideas independently presents as an opportunity for advisers: ask what they found, correct what’s wrong (or reinforce what’s right), and treat the conversation as part of the ongoing advice relationship, rather than pretend it isn’t happening.
The CoreData/Conexus Financial Best Possible Retirement 2026 report is based on research conducted between 19 March and 1 May 2026, surveying 3481 Australians aged 45 and over. The sample comprised 1001 respondents forming the broad market sample and 2480 respondents sourced through other superannuation fund send-outs. The survey captured attitudinal and behavioural data across confidence and comfort, financial discipline, and retirement experience. These responses were used to calculate a Preparedness to Retire score for those still working and a Retirement Satisfaction score for those retired, which were combined into an index score out of 100 measuring Australia’s Best Possible Retirement. Conexus Financial is the publisher of Professional Planner.
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