What other Canadians are doing with AI to manage their money — and why it might be simpler than you think

Artificial intelligence (AI) now sits at the centre of how many Canadians live, work and manage their money. In a 2024 Ipsos poll conducted for BMO, about one-third (33%) of Canadians said they were already using AI to help manage their finances, including a majority (55%) of Gen Z respondents (1).

At the same time, newer research suggests most people don’t feel especially skilled with these tools. TD’s 2025 AI Insights Report (2) found that while 87% of Canadians say they’re comfortable learning and adapting to new technology, only 3% gave themselves an “A” for AI skills, and 40% graded themselves a “C.”

That gap between enthusiasm and confidence is especially important when Canadians are turning to AI for big decisions about debt, saving and investing.

“AI is proving a powerful tool to build financial literacy and make informed financial decisions, and together with guidance from a professional advisor, more Canadians can be empowered to conveniently manage their money, achieve their goals and make real financial progress,” said Gayle Ramsay, BMO’s head of everyday banking segment and customer growth, in the 2024 survey release (3).

But will AI really help transform money management and improve financial literacy?

What AI technology offers when it comes to money management

According to BMO’s 2024 survey (4) on AI and money management, just over half of Canadians (52%) believed AI can help people make more informed financial decisions, and 51% felt it could make financial planning more accessible. Of the 33% already using AI for their finances, the most common uses included learning more about personal finance (45%), creating or updating household budgets (43%), identifying new investment strategies (42%), building savings (40%) and updating their financial plans (40%).

The survey also highlighted big generational differences. A majority of Gen Z respondents (55%) said they used AI to manage their money, and many were leaning on AI for research, budgeting, planning and even investment ideas. Yet 68% of all respondents felt AI still does not understand how emotions influence financial planning — a crucial factor in how we actually behave with money.

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State of the art investing practices

For many Canadians, investing still feels intimidating — markets are volatile, products are complicated and there’s a lot of noise. Robo-advisors and AI-assisted platforms try to simplify the process by building diversified portfolios of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs), automatically rebalancing them and reinvesting dividends, often for far less than the typical mutual fund.

Wealthsimple
Wealthsimple offers one of Canada’s largest robo-advisors (5). Its managed investing service builds portfolios of low-cost ETFs based on your goals and risk tolerance, and then handles automatic rebalancing and dividend reinvestment. Wealthsimple charges an annual management fee of 0.5%, which drops to 0.4% once you have more than $100,000 invested (6), plus the underlying ETF management expense ratios (MERs). Accounts are available in TFSAs, RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs and non-registered accounts.

Questwealth Portfolios (Questrade)
Questwealth Portfolios, offered by Questrade, uses professionally managed ETF portfolios with some of the lowest published management fees in Canada’s robo-advisor market. Management fees generally start at 0.25% of assets under management, on top of ETF MERs that typically range from about 0.17% to 0.22%, depending on the portfolio. Questwealth also offers socially responsible investing (SRI) portfolios with slightly higher MERs. Accounts can be opened as TFSAs, RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs and non-registered accounts. If you're looking to get started with a robo-advisor, here are a few popular options:

How AI is showing up in professional advice

Robo-advisors aren’t the only way AI is entering financial planning. Canadian banks and wealth firms are rolling out AI-powered planning software that works behind the scenes for human advisors. Winnipeg-based Conquest Planning, for example, uses AI to analyze client data and generate financial-plan scenarios, and its tools are now used by more than 60,000 advisors at firms including RBC, Wealthsimple and other major institutions (7).

RBC has also highlighted AI as a core piece of its long-term growth strategy, saying it wants to use AI to deliver more personalized advice and improve efficiency across wealth management and other businesses. Reuters (8).

For Canadian investors, that points to a likely future where AI tools handle repetitive calculations and scenario-building, while human advisors focus on judgment calls, tax planning and the emotional side of money.

— with files from David Saric, Leslie Kennedy and Nicholas Sokic

Article sources

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BMO (1, 3, 4); TD (2); Wealthsimple (5, 6); Barron's (7); Reuters (8)