Money
Can AI help sort your super? Here’s how to ask it the right questions
Most of us know Chat GPT can be a helpful copilot to write a difficult email. But AI might also help you have the best conversation you’ve never yet had with your future self about your superannuation.
By Alex Brooks
The word ‘superannuation’ is dull enough to make most of us switch off.
It’s a fog of numbers, options and distant timelines – until you hit the age of 50 when that preservation age becomes tantalisingly close and you start to wonder what all that money might do for you.
Superannuation is how most of us will pay our future selves. It offers freedom from salary-earning and can mean the difference between living life or simply enduring it in retirement.
But when it matters most, do we really understand enough to make the right choices about our super?
Personalised financial advice about super is the gold standard most of us need to maximise our super and future retirement income – but in Australia it can cost thousands (thanks to improved regulatory standards to stamp out misconduct).
This Moneysmart article breaks down what you’ll typically pay for personal financial advice. But figuring out what type of advice you need – and who to trust – can feel just as confusing as super itself.
Is it any wonder most of us put it in the too-hard basket?
Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) help solve the superannuation advice problem?
Yes, according to Dr Ben Neilson, a licensed financial advisor and academic researcher who has explored exactly that topic in several Australian studies – one about identifying misconduct and another on how AI can author financial recommendations for Australians.
"Financial advice should not be as expensive or as slow as it is ... We’re making leaps to make sure every Australian has access to high-quality advice at a fraction of the price,” Dr Neilson says.
Dr Neilson believes general superannuation literacy advice should cost just a few hundred dollars and even complicated personal financial advice should not cost more than $3,000 - $4,000.
And that’s where AI comes in – it reduces the cost of advice by getting rid of the burdensome tasks that licensed financial advisors must complete to ensure they don’t get pinged for misconduct or breaching their licence.
Tasks like writing a Statement of Advice or coaching a client on complex issues like downsizing, maximising concessional contributions or understanding general transfer balance caps can be made easier, simpler and cheaper if AI does the heavy lifting and frees up the financial advisor to share their precious knowledge with more people.
“Advisors know what to recommend in 8 seconds – but it takes 4 weeks to write it down. That’s where AI comes in,” he says. "Instead of taking one whole day, it takes 10 minutes – and we can be far more impactful. We can do thousands of those a month."
Dr Neilson began training AI to understand the different regulations and legislation governing everything from superannuation to downsizing and Age Pension entitlements.
He then ‘judged’ the AI outputs himself, before giving AI-generated advice to his compliance team and a group of other licensed financial advisors.
“All of them came back and said ‘This is fantastic’.”
Prompt magic to learn about your super
Using AI is like filtering quickly through thousands of complex books – or pieces of information – to grab precisely the information you need … but you still need to know the right questions to ask (also called ‘prompts’).
Honing your prompts – or questions – can also give you more precise responses that help teach you more along the way. For example, you might ask “I am 52 today and have $360,000 in my super fund, how much pension will that pay me when I’m 65”.
An AI chat interface can then tell you the financial assumptions underpinning the results and give you a step by step projected super balance at 65, along with a retirement pension income assuming a 5% drawdown.
You can then do what’s called a ‘meta prompt’ – or a more detailed question – by asking something like “can you track my balance in relation to the ASFA standard” or even “what would change if I contribute an extra $2,000 a year for the next 10 years”.
Other prompts that might to help you quickly model what your super might do in the future could be questions or prompts such as:
- I have $XX in super and pay $XX on a mortgage at X% interest – is it smarter for me to put money into super or pay off my mortgage?
- How long will a pension income last if I retire at 60 versus 67?
- I have $XX in savings outside of super and $XX inside super and will pay off my mortgage by age 62 – what target amount should I have in superannuation by the age of 62? You can then prompt again to ask ‘what would I need to save each month to retire by age 60 with the same amount of super?’.
- I have a house worth $XX and $XX in superannuation – what downsizer contribution would I need to make if I want to retire on the ASFA comfortable standard at age 60?
The process of prompting AI and engaging with the answers can immediately teach you more about your super than an hour-long phone call with a financial advisor, simply because you’re asking questions that are relevant to you. It’s a good idea to check anything other than factual information with a financial advisor, but AI can at least help to narrow down the questions you ask.
Play safe – don’t reveal anything personal to AI (or cold callers)
Whatever you do with AI, never give it personal details like your name, date of birth, account details or anything similar. Maintaining privacy is vital cybersecurity hygiene in an age of scams and fraud.
That means:
- Don’t upload financial documents or statements.
- Don’t ever reveal personally identifiable information like passport numbers, Medicare cards, drivers licence details, superannuation account numbers and so on.
Dr Liming Zhu, an AI ethics expert at CSIRO’s Data61, has helped shape Australia’s voluntary AI safety standards, which include 10 key guardrails.
“Even with 99% accuracy and a human in the loop, AI can still be hacked or misused,” he warns.
Another risk? Hallucination, which is when AI gives wrong or made-up answers.
Dr Neilson adds that AI is pretty reliable when trained properly, but it can’t protect you from identity theft or legal missteps.
“You can’t blame ChatGPT if it gives bad advice. Only a licensed adviser is accountable,” he says.
Treat it like a calculator, not a compass
The bottom line is that AI can be used as an assistant, not your financial advisor. So treat it like a calculator rather than a compass. (Oh, and ‘agentic AI’ is a whole other story … stay tuned for that.)
Oh, and even if AI makes you think your super is on the right track, Dr Neilson says you should still review it every 2-3 years.
“I like to give people a graph and say ‘if your balance isn’t doing this by this time, then you need to call me’,” he says.
This article contains general information only. It is not financial advice and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about any financial products or investments. You should consider carefully how AI is best used in your personal circumstances. If you are unsure, always consult with a financial advisor and verify any information you have obtained.
Feature image: iStock/pondsaksit
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