Two-Thirds of Young Australians Trust AI for Money Advice

ASIC published research on 23 March 2026 that should get the attention of every accounting firm and financial advice practice in Australia. In a YouGov survey of 1,227 Australians aged 18 to 28, commissioned by Moneysmart, 18% said they already use AI platforms for financial information and guidance. Almost two-thirds — 64% — said they trust AI for money advice. One in six said they trust it completely.

This isn’t a prediction about what might happen. It’s what your next generation of clients is already doing.

The guidance, published on the Moneysmart website, doesn’t ban AI for financial questions. It warns about limitations: AI tools can provide inaccurate or inappropriate suggestions, information may be incomplete or promotional, and any output should be verified against trusted sources before acting on it.

In other words, ASIC is saying: people are using AI for financial guidance, it’s not going away, and the quality isn’t reliable yet. That last part is the opening for professional services firms.

A 22-year-old asking ChatGPT about salary packaging or crypto tax obligations today is a 30-year-old business owner in eight years. The habits they’re forming now — asking an AI before calling a professional — don’t reverse easily. They compound.

For advice practices, this is fundamentally a revenue capture problem. Every question a client resolves through a free AI tool is a touchpoint that didn’t happen with your firm. Enough missed touchpoints and the relationship thins from adviser-client to once-a-year compliance.

A Dext-commissioned survey of 500 Canadian accountants, conducted by Censuswide in December 2025, previews the downstream effects. Half said they’re aware of businesses that have suffered direct financial losses — overpayments, missed allowances, penalties — from acting on AI-generated advice. Forty-four per cent spend up to three hours a month correcting those errors.

The Adviser Ratings 2025 Australian Financial Advice Landscape Report found that 74% of advice practices now use or plan to use AI, up from 45% in 2024. Australian firms are ahead of the global average of 64%, per the Financial Planning Standards Board’s survey of 6,200 planners. But the usage is concentrated in the back office.

File note creation and meeting documentation: 86%. Client newsletters: 53%. Statement of advice production: 46%. The pattern is clear. Firms are using AI to reduce internal admin. Few are using it to change the client experience.

The firms that do are pulling ahead. Adviser Ratings found that tech-savvy practices operate with 55% fewer staff per adviser while achieving profit margins of 29% or higher — nearly double their peers. We wrote last week about accounting firms closing the books 7.5 days faster with AI agents. That’s the back-office advantage. The front-office advantage — using AI to deliver faster, more personalised guidance — is where the real differentiation will come from.

First, accept that your younger clients and prospects are already using AI for financial questions. Build your service model around that fact. If a client comes in having already asked ChatGPT about their tax position, don’t treat it as a nuisance — treat it as a starting point and show them what the AI got wrong.

Second, use AI to be more proactive, not less visible. Your advantage over ChatGPT isn’t knowledge — it’s context. You know the client’s business, their family structure, their risk profile. AI-augmented advice that draws on that context is something no general-purpose chatbot can replicate. But only if you’re reaching out before the client searches for it.

Third, audit your client touchpoints. If the only interactions are BAS lodgement and end-of-year, you’re leaving space for AI to fill. The firms that win the next decade will be the ones that increase contact frequency through AI-powered insights — proactive tax alerts, cashflow nudges, regulatory updates — without increasing headcount.

Key takeaways

Wondering what this shift means for your practice?

A 30-minute call is enough to assess where AI fits in your client experience — and where you might be losing ground.