The role of Artificial Intelligence in personal finance: opportunities, challenges, and ethical considerations

This paper answers the research question: To what extent do individuals trust AI to make personal financial decisions compared to human financial advisors? It is grounded in theories of trust, technology acceptance, and behavioural finance, which investigate psychological, situational, and moral aspects that affect trust. Following a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design, the study started with seven qualitative, semi-structured interviews and then thematically analyzed to build up five major themes: Trust and Empathy, Convenience and Accessibility, Personalization and Understanding, Ethical Considerations, and Complexity of Financial Decisions. These were used to design a structured online survey of 150 self-selected participants, which was analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, regression, and factor analysis, to measure trust prevalence and predictors across demography and decision-making context. Findings show that participants trust AI more regarding low-risk tasks when they need it every day and desire to process data (73% and 71%, respectively), but only human advisors are trusted to make complex and critical decisions (58%), as they are more empathetic (human: 3.2/5 vs. AI: 2.8/5; p < 0.05). Interestingly, 67% preferred hybrid advisory models of AI and humans, where AI was applied in its ability to analyze data and humans in their ethical insight and emotional intelligence. The results emphasize the trust relationship in situations, as they indicate the need to create transparent AI and human structures with bias control and empathetic practices. Future studies should investigate the effectiveness of hybrid advisory models and examine how regulatory frameworks influence consumer trust.

Questo studio analizza il grado di fiducia degli individui nell’Intelligenza Artificiale (IA) rispetto ai consulenti finanziari umani nel prendere decisioni finanziarie personali. Basato sulle teorie della fiducia, dell’accettazione tecnologica e della finanza comportamentale, adotta un disegno mixed-methods esplorativo sequenziale. La ricerca combina sette interviste qualitative semi-strutturate con un questionario online somministrato a 150 partecipanti, analizzato tramite statistiche descrittive e inferenziali. I risultati indicano che l’IA è maggiormente considerata affidabile per attività finanziarie a basso rischio e di uso quotidiano, mentre i consulenti umani sono preferiti per decisioni complesse e critiche, grazie a livelli più elevati di empatia. Inoltre, la maggioranza dei partecipanti predilige modelli di consulenza ibridi che integrano le capacità analitiche dell’IA con il giudizio etico e l’intelligenza emotiva umana. Lo studio evidenzia l’importanza di strutture trasparenti e orientate alla fiducia e suggerisce ulteriori ricerche sull’efficacia dei modelli ibridi e sul ruolo della regolamentazione.