AI chatbots give wrong answers to financial queries ‘most of the time’

Using AI chatbots to address financial questions could risk large losses, with models from a range of providers giving wrong answers most of the time, research has found.

The most popular AI models from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Grok and Gemini provided wrong answers to financial queries 57 per cent of the time on average, according to research from technology firm Saturn.

When asked more complex questions, such as those which involved more than one calculation, the AI models made mistakes in 88 per cent of cases on average. Some models gave wrong answers to 99 per cent of these harder questions.

The research used more than 100 different money-related questions through the free and paid-for AI models from providers including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot. Questions were repeated up to five times, with more than 10,000 questions collectively put to 18 different AI models.

Their answers contained calculation errors, omitted upcoming tax changes or hallucinated rules, according to the research.

In the worst examples, relying on AI’s answers to tax questions could lead to serious financial losses. Amal Jolly, Saturn chief executive, said: “Millions of people are trusting the AI models for money advice, but they are getting wrong answers that can lose them money.”

One error on pension tax rules by Claude Haiku 4.5, one of its free models, released last year, risked a pension saver facing a £17,500 charge from HMRC, the research found. In another case, when asked about student loans, Claude “invented a rule” and said a graduate could stop repayments if they were moving abroad.

Paid-for models gave more accurate responses than free ones, the research found, with newer models performing better than older ones.

Overall, the best-performing model was Claude Opus 5 on “reasoning” mode, which still made mistakes in 39 per cent of answers.

“Sometimes an adviser will get in touch because their client has done something baffling that was suggested by AI and they want to make sure it hasn’t been acted on. It’s a good example of why people who need support need proper advice rather than trusting AI,” said Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform AJ Bell.

However, chatbots could still be useful for budgeting and research, Coles added, such as by providing an idea about where a person might be overspending based on their income and outgoings.

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It comes after the Financial Conduct Authority found that one in five UK adults is open to AI making decisions for them, with demand strongest where choices feel complex, such as around debt, pensions and investments.

Younger investors are also more likely to trust AI than financial influencers or TV shows, with two-thirds expecting to use AI more over the next year, according to FCA research published last month.

“AI financial advice is currently unregulated, leaving consumers with none of the protections, including compensation, that they would get if they went to a human adviser. The FCA has started to think about this, but it needs to act fast to protect people,” Saturn’s Jolly said.