AI Retirement Test: ChatGPT vs. Copilot – GOBankingRates
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According to a 2024 Experian survey, 47% of respondents reported using AI tools to manage their personal finances. But when it comes to, say, planning your retirement, can chatbots really replace the wisdom of a good financial advisor?
To put this question to the test, I asked ChatGPT to predict when I might retire based on my current finances, then had other large language models (LLMs) review its work. The chatbots’ responses ranged from the depressing to the hopeful. Here’s what they had to say.
Armed with my age, current savings, yearly 401(k) contributions, and estimated monthly retirement spending, ChatGPT painted a pretty bleak picture of my retirement. At the current rate, I could expect to hang my hat at age 92. Needless to say, the chances of taking a “normal” retirement seemed remote.
To bridge the gap between what I would need and what I currently have, it said I could:
When I told it my estimated Social Security benefits, it updated my retirement age to 80. Better, but still pretty grim.
Microsoft Copilot was less direct than ChatGPT. Though I directly asked when I would retire, it didn’t provide an age and instead led with calculations for what I would need, what I would have, and how I could bridge the gap.
The advice was similar, but it advised me to aim to save $10,000 a year — a much more manageable number. When pushed and asked when it believed I could retire, it told me between 75 and 77, a number it revised down to 71 when I gave it my Social Security benefits estimate.
However, when I asked it to weigh in on ChatGPT’s answer, it capitulated like a little brother eager to please its older sibling. ChatGPT’s estimate that I’d achieve financial independence at 92 (81 with Social Security), it said, was “a mathematically sound estimate.”
As the only LLM that stated (repeatedly) that this was a question best left to a financial advisor, Google Gemini offered a level-headedness lacking its artificial intelligence brethren. Perhaps I’m biased, because Gemini also painted the rosiest picture of my retirement outlook, estimating I could hit my retirement goals at 74 — and could potentially even retire at the target age of 67 once Social Security was factored in.
Unlike Copilot, it seemed very critical of ChatGPT’s assessment, which it deemed “overly conservative and unrealistic.” The discrepancy, it said, comes from ChatGPT’s likely using a pre-inflation return rate while also inflating my desired spending goal for inflation without also inflating my contributions for inflation. It also noted that ChatGPT didn’t adjust my Social Security benefits for inflation.
If ChatGPT were a pessimist and Gemini a cheerleader, Grok played the part of the nerdy actuary. It crunched every number imaginable — compound interest, safe withdrawal rates, inflation curves — before delivering the same grim conclusion: with my current savings rate, I’ll be lucky to retire before 90.
In short, Grok agreed with ChatGPT’s bleak math but explained why in excruciating detail: My current savings rate is way out of sync with my retirement dreams.
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