AI could make financial guidance cheaper, more personal and easier to access. It can explain investment products, model retirement scenarios, find room in a household budget and answer questions at any hour. These capabilities could offer real value to Canadians who don’t currently receive comprehensive financial planning.
Traditional advising models do not serve everyone. Their economics tend to favour households with larger portfolios, while people with modest savings may receive only occasional help, missing out on holistic, ongoing planning. Yet people with more modest means are often those who most need support with retirement, debt and day-to-day financial decisions – and this group represents about one-third of Canadians.
Environics Research’s FinTech Syndicated Study finds about one in ten Canadians reports having no household savings or investments, while roughly an additional one-quarter have less than $50,000 in financial and investment assets.
AI has the potential to meet this large group’s needs – but adoption is not a sure thing. Findings from our study suggest the people most ready to use AI may be those who are relatively well served by existing advising models. Those with more modest means and those entering some of the most consequential years of their financial lives are much more hesitant.
Retirement planning is about more than the numbers
Financial advice is often treated as an information problem: provide better projections, build a clearer dashboard or recommend a more efficient portfolio. After 50, however, emotion can begin to supersede technical considerations. In the minds of many aging Canadians, one simple question often predominates: “Am I going to be okay?”.
Environics Research’s Aging in Canada: Life After 50 report helps explain why that question feels increasingly urgent. Among Canadians aged 50 and older, the proportion who believe their generation is better off than their parents’ in terms of financial security has fallen from 62% to 41% over the past 20 years.
The proportion who believe their generation is worse off has nearly doubled, from 15% to 29%.
Retirement expectations have shifted as well. Among people able to estimate when they will retire, the average expected retirement age rose from 60.9 in 2005 to 64.8 in 2026. (Actual retirement ages moved more gradually over the same period, from 58.1 to 59.6.) A four-year change in projected retirement timing does not necessarily mean people will work four years longer. But at a minimum, it suggests that people are moving the expected finish line outward as their confidence changes.
AI has the potential to play a useful role in building Canadians’ confidence, bridging the emotional and analytical dimensions of retirement planning. A well-designed tool could test different retirement dates, translate pension and investment concepts into plain language, explain trade-offs, remind people about financial tasks they have put off and help people make today’s decisions with their personal priorities for the future in mind. But usefulness alone will not persuade people to use an AI-powered tool.
The people with the most to gain may be the least likely to opt in
Almost half of Canadians under 35 (49%) would allow AI to analyze their financial behaviour if it could help them save. That share falls to 26% among those aged 50–64 and to 16% among those 65 and older. The same pattern appears in actual use: 47% of Canadians under 35 have used tools such as ChatGPT to research financial information or seek advice, compared with 19% of those aged 50–64 and 8% of those 65 and older.
Those patterns suggest a problem for financial institutions. Financial institutions that want to help older customers access the benefits of AI-powered support have interconnected challenges: people approaching or living in retirement have less room for error in their financial planning and face more urgency in taking sound action, but they are less willing to share financial information with AI or let it influence their decisions. Financial institutions that want to help older customers access the benefits of AI-powered support have interconnected challenges: people approaching or living in retirement have less room for error in their financial planning and face more urgency in taking sound action, but they are less willing to share financial information with AI or let it influence their decisions. Age is only part of the issue. Income, education, financial knowledge, trust and digital confidence can also affect whether someone is ready to use an AI-enabled service. If institutions design primarily for confident early adopters, they risk making their lowest-cost guidance easiest to use for people who are already better equipped to navigate the financial system. A tool is not inclusive simply because anyone can download it. It must also be understandable, trusted and easy to use.
AI can sound more certain than it should
Seventy-three per cent of Canadians worry that new financial technologies increase their risk of fraud or financial loss. Concern rises to 78% among those aged 50–64 and 80% among those 65 and older. Whatever the actual prevalence of fraud targeting specific age groups, these findings do show that heightened fear of fraud among older people is likely to shape adoption.
Some consumers may avoid useful tools because they aren’t confident they can tell a legitimate AI assistant from a convincing impersonation. Others may trust a fraudulent service because it looks polished and sounds authoritative. Even setting deliberate fraud aside, legitimate AI tools create another risk: they can sound certain even when the answer depends on incomplete information.
A retirement projection may look precise even though it rests on uncertain assumptions about inflation, investment returns, health, housing and longevity. An explanation may be technically correct but unsuitable for the person asking. The system may ignore or underplay important information about taxes, family obligations or care costs if the user hasn’t underscored those factors.
Shaky advice can also involve speculative products and “get rich quick” claims. Cryptocurrency and high-risk trading strategies can sound more manageable when presented in clear, confident language. A polished explanation, however, does not make an investment suitable – or reduce the consequences of a loss close to retirement.
In short, the risk is twofold: some people will miss out on the benefits of AI because of blanket distrust, while others may trust an AI-powered tool too much.
Responsible tools should make their assumptions visible, distinguish education from promotion and flag decisions involving unusual volatility, concentration or irreversible action. The providers of such tools must also have reliable ways to recognize when a person should step in to protect or support the user.
Canadians still want a person involved
The FinTech Study sends a clear message: trust matters. While convenience is welcome, ease of access doesn’t outweigh the value of reassurance. Seventy-nine per cent of Canadians say it’s important to have a human representative answer their questions rather than an AI chatbot, even if that means waiting. The proportion rises to 82% among those aged 50–64 and 88% among those 65 and older.
More than half also prefer AI tools to make suggestions rather than automatically take action in their accounts. Consumers appear comfortable letting AI help them think. They are less comfortable letting it decide. That points to a more practical future for advice: not AI instead of people, but AI helping people deliver advice to more people.
Among respondents asked about their current advice sources, 71% of those aged 50–64 and 69% of those 65 and older use some form of financial advisor. The study’s measure includes human sources such as bank and credit-union advisors, bank-owned brokerage advisors and independent advisors or planners. Robo-advice is measured separately.
Still, having an advice source is not the same as receiving affordable and comprehensive planning. Someone may ask a bank representative an occasional question without having an advisor who understands their full household picture and provides ongoing support.
AI could fill some of that space. It can organize information, test scenarios, explain terminology and prepare questions. A financial institution representative can interpret the results, identify missing context and help the consumer make the final decision. Used this way, AI could reduce the cost of delivering advice while preserving what many consumers value most: judgment, accountability and reassurance. More importantly, it could extend meaningful support to people whose savings fall below the levels traditionally associated with comprehensive advice.
What institutions need to get right
Success should not be judged only by adoption or cost savings. Institutions should also ask:
- Who uses the tool – and who abandons it?
- Do people understand its recommendations and limitations?
- Are they sharing data with informed consent?
- Can they reach a person before making a consequential decision?
- Are consumers with modest savings receiving better guidance?
- How do trust and outcomes vary by income, education, digital confidence and personal values
Design matters. Tools should use plain language, introduce more advanced features gradually and allow consumers to build confidence before sharing sensitive information or acting on a recommendation. They should make uncertainty clear, include safeguards against unsuitable risk and escalate complex or high-stakes decisions to qualified people.
Institutions also need to look beyond age. Canadians over 50 are not a single market. They differ in their resources, financial knowledge, family circumstances, trust in institutions and comfort with technology.
Our FinTech Syndicated Study and Financial Services practice can help organizations gain detailed market insights, identifying who is open to AI, what drives distrust and where human validation remains essential. Those insights can help institutions offer the right balance of digital convenience and personal support to different groups.
Advice that reaches more people
AI could give millions of Canadians access to better information and more frequent support. But success will depend on whether people understand the guidance they receive, trust it enough to apply it, use AI tools safely and remain in control of decisions that may shape the rest of their lives.
The real opportunity is not simply to make advice faster for people who already receive it. It’s to bring affordable, understandable and responsible guidance within reach of people who have historically been underserved. For many Canadians over age 50, that is likely to mean combining the reach of AI with the judgment and reassurance of another person.
Download our Aging in Canada: Life After 50 report to explore how Canadians’ expectations for aging and retirement have changed over the past 20 years. To learn how attitudes toward AI, trust and financial technology are reshaping financial services, reach out to Bernice about the 2026 Canadian FinTech Syndicated Study.
