AI Is Reshaping How Consumers Seek Financial Guidance

# Summary Forrester research shows a clear behavioral shift: consumers are using conversational AI to research, compare, and monitor personal finances, and many start financial journeys outside their bank's channels. While banks have long controlled customer touchpoints—branches, contact centers, websites, and mobile apps—conversational AI is becoming a new interface for discovery and decision support. That creates a distinction between winning customers' transactions and winning their trust and influence over decisions.

# What's changing now Consumers use conversational assistants to understand financial concepts, compare products, and model scenarios. Nearly one-third of consumers across the US, UK, and Canada use conversational AI for personal finance questions. About 25% used their bank's AI assistant in the past year, and roughly 24% relied on third-party platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Siri. Third-party assistants are often judged more helpful than bank-provided ones.

# Why trust matters more than raw adoption Adoption of AI for information tasks is rising faster than consumers' willingness to accept AI recommendations or autonomous actions. People are comfortable using AI to learn and monitor, but they grow wary when AI moves into recommendation, decision-making, or taking actions on their behalf. Privacy, security, and accuracy concerns persist. Many consumers still prefer access to human support and want clear paths for human escalation.

# What banks must demonstrate to stay relevant Banks can't rely on channel ownership alone. To remain the primary source of financial guidance, banks need conversational experiences customers trust enough to rely on for important decisions. That requires demonstrable capabilities:

• Accuracy and reliable recommendations.
• Transparency about how suggestions are generated.
• Strong privacy and security measures.
• Clear human oversight and escalation when needed.
• Personalization tied to customer context and goals.

Banks that combine convenient AI with human expertise and these trust signals are more likely to secure long-term adoption.

# The strategic question for banks The central strategic question is whether banks will remain the primary source of financial guidance as AI becomes the new discovery and decision interface. Control of the interaction layer may shift to whichever provider helps customers achieve better outcomes—not necessarily the provider that owns the underlying product. Treating AI primarily as automation risks making banks invisible in customers' decision journeys.

# Immediate opportunity The current opportunity is not autonomous finance but trusted financial guidance. Banks should focus on building AI assistants that educate, guide, and support customers while making it explicit how humans remain in the loop. Investments should prioritize trustworthiness features and user experience rather than full autonomy today.

# Bottom line Consumers are already using AI for personal finance. Banks that proactively build trustworthy, transparent, and well-governed conversational guidance stand a better chance of retaining influence. Those that treat AI only as a cost-saving automation risk losing customers' attention and choice to third-party assistants.