Trust in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve financial knowledge and management is growing among young people, according to new data from Plum.
Its research of 2,000 UK adults found 61% of those aged 18–34-year-olds are comfortable with AI making financial predictions for them. Young people are also the most confident in using data to save money, with 45% happy to share their data for this purpose compared to just 15% of those aged 55 plus.
Meanwhile, half (50%) of 18–34-year-olds said they felt comfortable trusting AI to make decisions on savings and investments for them. This could indicate that this generation may make the boldest move yet away from traditional financial advice and towards AI, such as robot advisers or money management apps.
The research also explored young people’s opinions about other forms of AI, finding that:
- 60% of 18–34-year-olds felt happy with AI predicting what they should read or listen to, vs 43% of all ages;
- 58% felt comfortable with AI being used to prevent fraud or for facial recognition, vs 52% of all ages;
- 56% would use AI for personalised shopping, vs 40% of all ages.
These results show that young people see many uses for AI beyond financial services and are substantially more open-minded to novel uses than respondents from older age groups.
However, scepticism about the benefits of AI still remains across age groups. Only one in five (18%) felt that they could benefit from financial apps that use AI, although for young people, this rises to one in four (24%).
Furthermore, nearly half (46%) across all age groups felt that they didn’t understand how AI could impact their life for the better. This indicates that while people recognise the benefits of AI within specific contexts, they do not necessarily see it as a benefit more generally.
“Your first thought when you hear the words ‘Artificial Intelligence’ might be the Hollywood-inspired futuristic robot that can think like a human and take over the world. But what we’re actually starting to see are real-world, useful applications of AI that benefit your everyday life,” said Victor Trokoudes, CEO and Co-founder, Plum. “They might not be taking over the world, but this type of AI is having a democratising effect on financial services, which is really exciting. Smart technology means everyone can cheaply access services that previously would have been gate-kept by those with enough money to afford expensive services or advisers.”