TROY — An Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot ready to give financial advice? That’s what the credit bureau Experian is doing now with the social media app Snapchat.
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“A lot of folks in my industry feel threatened by AI. I’m not,” Rob Burnette, CEO and Financial Planner with Outlook Financial Center, said.
Burnette has spent the last two decades advising clients on their finances. Now, people are turning to AI for advice.
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“It’s just another tool in the toolbox,” Burnette said, but added that while you can get a good answer from it, you could also get a bad answer.
Experian said its AI chatbot on Snapchat is aimed at getting trusted financial information to younger consumers where they already are.
Burnette told News Center 7’s Xavier Hershovitz that he views this as a tool to help build financial literacy.
“They just graduated from high school, maybe they were in college,” he said. “Are they going to come to me unless their parents are already with me? The answer is no, not in a million years, and I get that.”
While the chatbot may be able to give good answers to questions on topics like boosting your credit score, Burnette warns that it’s in the details that you need to be careful.
“AI can answer a broad question. It’s not going to get into your specific situation, because it just doesn’t have the data, doesn’t have the context,” he explained.
When it comes to finances, so many decisions are specific to a person’s situation. Burnette said that’s where AI chatbots are limited.
“You don’t want to put that information out there because now you’re exposing all your own personal information, and you really don’t want that,” Burnette said.
If you do use AI, Burnette says to be mindful of where it’s pulling its information.
“The thing I like about them is they’re also telling you where is the source we pulled that from,” he said. “So if I’m not sure about their conclusion, I’ll go to the source they pulled from, and that will then send me to other sources.”
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