Most Australians already go without financial advice, so the question worth asking is whether AI can help human advice reach them.
We hear a lot about the roles AI will replace and one of them that gets added to the mix is financial advisers. It's a fair question, and we understand the anxiety behind it from both sides of the table. We think it starts in the wrong place, though, because it assumes most people have an adviser to lose, and most Australians don't.
Most Australians already have no adviser
As of June 2026 there were 15,099 registered financial advisers in Australia, and that number keeps drifting down (Riskinfo, 2026). Adviser Ratings found that only 10.4% of Australians receive financial advice, down from 13.9% in 2019, while the median ongoing advice fee climbed to $4,668, up 67% over five years in which inflation ran at 20.5% (Riskinfo, 2025). More than 2.6 million Australians are estimated to need advice they are not getting.
The government's Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms, including a proposed "new class of adviser", were meant to help close that gap. They have stalled, and in February 2026 the Minister declined to give a timeframe following the Shield and First Guardian collapses (Professional Planner, 2026).
So will AI replace financial advisers in Australia? For most of the country there is no adviser for AI to replace. The question we care about is whether AI can help good, human advice reach the people it currently misses, along with the causes their money could be supporting.
People are already asking AI about money
People aren't waiting for an answer. AustralianSuper research shows 17% of Australians already use AI for financial decisions, rising to 28% of 18 to 29 year olds (AustralianSuper, 2026). Plenty remain cautious, with 37% saying they don't trust it, yet a quarter of AI users act on what it tells them without checking.
That last figure worries us most. Can ChatGPT give financial advice? It can certainly produce something that sounds like advice, fluently and with great confidence. When UK firm Saturn tested leading AI models, they gave wrong or incomplete financial answers 57% of the time, and 88% of the time on complex questions (InvestmentNews, 2026). Complex questions about super, tax, family and retirement are exactly where most people need help. ASIC has noticed too, publishing its first Moneysmart guidance on using AI for money questions in March and warning that these tools can give inaccurate or unsuitable suggestions (ASIC, 2026).
So is AI financial advice safe? Think of it as a very well-read friend who speaks with enormous confidence and is wrong more often than right on the questions that matter most. It's useful for learning the language of money, and risky as the thing that makes the decision.
You wouldn't hand over your autonomy
Think about your health. If an AI tool told you that you had cancer based on a couple of symptoms, you would not simply believe it. You would see a doctor, get tests and talk it through with at trusted professional who knows your health history. Most of us feel this instinctively, and US surveys found only about one in six people trust AI as much as a human expert to diagnose a health problem (Society for Risk Analysis, 2025).
The same instinct holds well beyond medicine. You wouldn't start a new drug because a chatbot suggested it, pour your savings into something because it promised to make you rich, transfer a large sum on its say-so, or fly across the world for an experience it described. Scammers are counting on people forgetting that instinct: Australians lost $2.18 billion to scams in 2025, including $837.7 million to investment scams, and the ACCC has flagged scammers' growing use of AI to make their pitches more convincing (National Anti-Scam Centre via Pickr, 2026). Decisions about your health, your security and the world your capital helps build deserve your own judgement, supported by experts who are accountable to you.
Caring and being intentional are human work
At UNLESS, our core values are being deeply caring and being intentional, and AI can do neither. It can produce warm-sounding sentences, but it does not care whether your parents are looked after, whether your daughter feels secure, or whether your super is quietly funding industries you would never knowingly back. Caring means noticing the hesitation in someone's voice when they mention a parent's health, or hearing that a client who asks for growth really wants security for their kids.
Being intentional means making deliberate choices with a clear sense of why, and revisiting them when life changes. That takes trust, honesty and sometimes an uncomfortable conversation, with a real person accountable for the outcome.
Our view at UNLESS is that the source behind your advice is proudly not AI, and AI will not replace us. That doesn't mean we're ignoring it. Like everyone else, we will use AI for the work that doesn't need our brain power, such as administration, first drafts, meeting notes and sorting through research. Every hour it gives back, we intend to reinvest in the things AI can't replace: listening properly, thinking carefully about a client's values and showing up for the moments that matter.
There is a human element in this work that we are becoming more aware of, and it will keep growing in our business. In the age of AI we plan to become more human while using these tools to work more efficiently and offer more. Over time we want that to include support for people who aren't clients and can't currently afford advice. We are working towards expanding our services and using AI to reach a much bigger audience, so we can help more people and, through the way their money flows, help our planet. We'll take that path carefully and transparently, because the trust people place in us is the foundation of everything we do.
If you'd like to talk about what your money could be doing, for you and for the world, book a free call with our team. We'd love to help you make your money make a difference.
Sources and further reading
Adviser Ratings via Riskinfo | Surge in median adviser fees | 2025 | Median advice fees and the share of Australians receiving advice
ASIC | Moneysmart publishes tips on using AI for financial issues | 2026 | The regulator's first consumer guidance on using AI for money questions
AustralianSuper | Australians test AI for money matters, but trust remains the deciding factor | 2026 | How Australians use and trust AI for financial decisions
InvestmentNews | AI chatbots give wrong financial answers most of the time, study finds | 2026 | Saturn's testing of AI models on financial questions
National Anti-Scam Centre via Pickr | Australian scam losses hit over $2 billion in 2025 | 2026 | Scam losses in 2025 and the ACCC's warning on AI-enabled scams
Professional Planner | New class of adviser might not survive Shield, First Guardian fallout | 2026 | The stalled reforms meant to widen access to advice
Riskinfo | Adviser numbers drop again | 2026 | ASIC Financial Advisers Register data showing 15,099 registered advisers
Society for Risk Analysis | Study finds most people trust doctors more than AI but see its potential for cancer diagnosis | 2025 | US survey findings on trust in AI versus human experts for diagnosis
