Most Britons don’t trust AI chatbots on pensions: Our agony uncle Steve Webb gives his take

People of all ages shun the idea of asking AI to help them make decisions about pensions, new research reveals.

While people are open to letting an AI tool set a household budget or search for the best savings deals, the vast majority feel pensions are off limits.

Even among 18 to 34-year-olds, who are generally more comfortable using AI to manage their money, only one in five say they would ask for assistance about pensions.

That level of trust falls to one in six among 35 to 54-year-olds and plunges to just one in 20 among over-55s, according to the study by Aegon.

‘The findings suggest that while consumers may be increasingly willing to use AI as part of their financial toolkit, retirement planning is viewed very differently,’ says the pension firm.

‘For many people, pensions are tied not only to money, but to long-term security, independence and expectations for later life.’

People using AI chatbots to ask questions about money face a dilemma, because unless they know the answer beforehand they have no way of telling if the information they are given can be trusted.

You should therefore be prepared to do further research to verify what you are told by AI.

Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb, who is now a partner at LCP, gives tips on using AI below. He explains how he typically asks a tool to give him a source, preferably an official one like gov.uk, when posing questions to help him do further checks.

Aegon’s research found that 65 per cent of people would never ask AI to make a financial decision for them.

That rises to 88 per cent among over-55s, who were by far the most sceptical about asking AI about any money topic, including household budgets.

Some 56 per cent of 35 to 54-year-olds and 41 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds would also shun AI completely when it comes to their finances.

The pension firm surveyed 2,000 adults, weighted to be representative of the UK population, this summer.

Dr Tom Mathar, head of Money:Mindshift and host of a podcast by that name at Aegon, says: ‘Younger adults are highly familiar with AI, yet retirement remains the financial area where they’re least willing to hand over decision-making.

‘Retirement planning is fundamentally different from budgeting or managing day-to-day finances. It’s not just about money.

‘It’s about the kind of life people want to lead, how long that money needs to last, and balancing the needs of their present self with the hopes of their future self.’

Tips on using AI for your money questions

Steve Webb, who celebrates his tenth anniversary as This is Money’s retirement agony uncle this year, offers the following advice to people who use AI chatbots to find out money information.

Personally, I have no problem with using AI tools, and sometimes do so myself, perhaps if I’m researching something and want to track down an article or document, he writes.

But you need to be very careful before relying on AI for financial planning. Here are a few things to think about.

1. AI can simply get things wrong – this is known as ‘hallucinating’. I’ve had plenty of times when I asked a question of an AI tool and got back an answer that I knew to be incorrect.

This is manageable if you know a subject well, but if the reason you are using AI is because it’s an unfamiliar subject, how can you tell if the answer is right or not?

2. For this reason, I typically ask the AI tool to give me a source – preferably an official one such as the gov.uk website – so I can independently verify if what I have been told is true.

3. The answer you get depends heavily on the question you ask, and it can be worth experimenting with asking the question in different ways to see if it throws up any important differences in the answer.

Got a pension question?

You can contact Steve Webb at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk and also browse his hundreds of answers to readers here.

When you are on that web page, try hitting ‘control F’ (‘command F’ on a Mac) and inputting a key word or two to find out if Steve has already done a column on what you want to know.

Steve’s most popular columns on the state pension are compiled here and those about private pensions are here.

Steve gets a lot of mail so if he doesn’t answer your question personally in a future column, you can also contact MoneyHelper, an impartial Government-backed organisation which gives free assistance on pensions to the public. MoneyHelper can be found here and its number is 0800 011 3797.

You can also check This is Money’s pension guides. Here are 10 covering the most common questions.

What should I do with my pensions at retirement?

When will I get my state pension?

How do I protect my pensions from the taxman?

How do I invest my pension at retirement?

Do I qualify for pension credit?

Will my pensions be hit with inheritance tax?

How do I track down an old pension?

What should I do about my pension while on maternity leave?

How should pensions be split in a divorce?

What should I do about a pension if I’m self-employed?