Annuity Answers from ChatGPT

AI has promised to make life easier but nearly everyone agrees that it will bring equally as many complications.  In the long run corporations are going to profit at the expense of the working class.  Life may be more convenient but less profitable at the same time.  My position here is in serious jeopardy because financial companies would love to eliminate the cost of someone who can explain the rules and strategies.  At the point where you can get the same thing from a computer, my experience will be worthless.  For now there is still a lot of value with human assistance in financial matters but there’s no telling how long it will last.

ChatGPT and other publicly available AI search engines have become incredibly popular in the past few years.  On the entertainment side it has basically made everyone into a graphic designer.  Funny memes, generated videos, and voice-overs can make it hard to figure out what’s real and what’s not.  That’s also where you need to be careful when you are looking for serious answers.  If you ask a legitimate question, it will search the internet for the answer and give you something that’s at the very least slightly more true than anything else.  It’s basically an advanced search engine that saves you the time of reading several pages of information and making up your own mind.

AI search engines are limited by the information you can get.  For the most part you will only get what is already available online.  My conspiracy theorists have tried to get answers to things like 911, the moon landing, or the JFK assassination but I wouldn’t trust the results on that.  Publicly available information is about all you can trust right now.

A few weeks ago I had a meeting with Tom and he’s a very technical person.  We ran some retirement income and portfolio management scenarios and I really appreciated the detailed questions he asked.  At the end of the second meeting he settled on one path in particular that he was most interested in.  He had a little homework to do as well and I promised to put together a little more information for our next meeting.  Before we parted ways he said, “I’m also going to ask ChatGPT what it thinks.”  I’m interested in that as well so I just asked if he would be willing to share the response that he gets.

A day or two later he sent me an email with the ChatGPT response copied.  I don’t know exactly what he searched but by the response I could more or less tell that he asked for a comparison of MYGAs, Fixed Indexed Annuities, and Single Premium Immediate Annuities.  I scanned through and can report that it’s essentially what I expected.  It offered a good synopsis of the details and features of the three different products.  It stated a few things as fact that were only partially true but there were no other major errors.  No strategies for using the products were mentioned and that’s where this will fall short for the time being.  It’s good basic information but you still have to think.  If 20 different people made the same query there would be 20 different ways to use the products mentioned and the best path would depend entirely on the individual situation of each person.

Knowing what I know about how these systems work, it made sense to see the response as it was presented.  It aggregated all the available information and summarized it in one place.  It probably even used information from my website for it.  Just realize that as it stands, a lot of what’s available is someone’s opinion so that is likely to infiltrate the results for quite some time.  For the time being it can give you a no-pressure second opinion or even help you frame some questions for your chosen financial professional.  I’m not going to tell you to say away from it because that would make me a coward and I’m up for the challenge.

Nobody seems to like the prospect of AI running our lives but everyone seems to be happy with the convenience.  No one complains about the stock market returns that have been driven entirely by AI companies.  If you don’t like it then don’t use it, in ANY form.  Otherwise, be very clear about its limitations and don’t accept any answers as fact.  It’s only as good as the people who published the original information and we know humans make mistakes all the time.  As long as this website is viable, everything will be written by my hand and created through my years of experience.  Expect nothing less from me as the world around us becomes more automated.

The truth is, your retirement deserves more than a computer-generated answer. It deserves someone who will listen, ask the right questions, and build a plan around what matters most to you. I’m here to have that conversation with you when you’re ready. Just pick a time on my calendar, and you’ll get the real me – no robots included.

Have a great weekend!

Bryan

Watch Episode 209: Annuity Answers From ChatGPT

Last Updated on January 9, 2026 by Bryan Anderson