MIT researchers find AI chatbots give women more conservative financial advice, costing them $60,000 by age 60

MIT researchers find AI chatbots give women more conservative financial advice, costing them $60,000 by age 60

Rebecca Payne

Fri, August 14, 2026 at 7:30 PM GMT+3 4 min read

As Americans turn to chatbots for answers on everything from grammar questions and popular baby names to how to store berries so they last longer, it's no surprise that some are also seeking financial advice from AI.

However, the stakes are markedly higher when it comes to financial decisions — you could potentially lose a lot more than a pint of blueberries.

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Researchers have turned an eye to how large-language model (LLM) AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Claude, give financial advice — and their findings might surprise you.

One study found that the advice that an LLM gave to men differed from that which it gave to women, with long-term results that could mean a woman would end up with tens of thousands of dollars less.

Americans turning to AI for answers

When it comes to using AI to manage their finances, Americans aren't shy.

Market research company JD Power found that 40% of consumers said they have used AI for help with personal finances, and 27% said it was somewhat or significantly helpful.

The rates of those who said it was helpful were highest among people who are under age 40 (40%), and those who are "overextended" (a metric JD Power assigns based on factors such as spending/savings ratio and creditworthiness). Of those consumers considered overextended, 48% said AI significantly or somewhat helped, compared to 29% ranked as "healthy" finance-wise, 21% of those who are "vulnerable" and 15% of those considered "stressed."

Of those consumers who said they use AI tools (including those who said they use AI, but not for personal finances), 24% said they used it to compare prices before buying things, 22% used AI to search out coupons, deals or discounts, and 21% said they used it to find ways they could increase their income or save money.

When asked whether AI helped them "make smarter financial decisions during times when affordability is a concern," 34% of consumers who use AI tools agreed. When asked the same question about their bank, 35% of consumers who have a bank account agreed.

Read More: Vanguard reveals what's coming for U.S. stocks — and it could be bad news for this group of investors

What does the chatbot say?

Researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management looked at the advice an LLM gave to study participants, and then extrapolated what that advice would mean for their finances long-term.

For their research paper, which has not yet been published, the researchers asked 1,000 U.S. adults to write prompts to an LLM. Then they simulated the effects of following the LLM's advice, compared to if they continued their observed behavior.

The researchers found that following the advice would mean most individuals would see better financial results, "including greater participation in diversified equity funds, equity shares that decline with age after 45, and sizable savings buffers."

"It tends to push people toward saving more, participating more in the stock market, de-risking as they get older," Taha Choukhmane, an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and co-author of the paper, told NPR. "It gets a lot of things right."

But the researchers also found that the advice the LLM gave varied depending on factors including gender, financial literacy and prior experience using AI.

The researchers found that prompts for the LLM written by women "accumulate less wealth."

"Prompts written by women generate recommendations that result in wealth at age 60 that is $60,000, or 4.1%, lower on average than prompts written by men," the report says.

That's because the LLM makes lower equity share recommendations to women than men, which the NPR report categorizes as suggesting "riskier financial moves for men than for women."

According to NPR, experts agree that financial advice from AI seems to "work best for people whose questions fall on the two ends of the sophistication spectrum: for people asking very basic Finance 101 questions, and for power users who are prepared to hand over lots of data about their situation and craft detailed prompts."

However, it can still make mistakes, and biases in its advice appear to exist. Advice from AI chatbots typically seems to move people in the right direction — saving, investing, and rebalancing toward less risky investments over time.

But one thing that isn't clear is whether that advice translates into action. For now, that's something we still have to take into our own hands.

This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: MIT researchers find AI chatbots give women more conservative financial advice, costing them $60,000 by age 60

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