Artificial intelligence has found its way into almost every part of our lives.
People are using it to write emails, plan vacations, research medical conditions, compare products, troubleshoot problems and answer questions that, just a few years ago, would have required a Google search followed by an hour of reading.
Increasingly, people are also asking AI what to do with their money.
And that creates an interesting contradiction.
A recent Gallup survey, conducted in partnership with Edward Jones, found that only 3% of Americans have a "great deal" of confidence in artificial intelligence when it comes to helping them manage their money. Yet among Americans who sought financial guidance during the previous year, roughly one in five used AI.
In other words, Americans don't necessarily trust AI.
But they're using it anyway.
That should get the attention of anyone who makes a living providing professional advice — including insurance agents and brokers.
Trust and Convenience Are Two Different Things
The Gallup survey included more than 5,000 American adults and found that traditional financial professionals still enjoy a significant trust advantage over artificial intelligence.
About 80% of adults expressed at least some confidence in professional financial advisers.
Yet only about one-third of those who sought financial advice actually consulted one.
Meanwhile, 73% did their own research online.
There is an important lesson buried in those numbers.
Trust does not automatically determine behavior.
Convenience does.
The internet is available at midnight. AI doesn't require an appointment. It doesn't put someone on hold. It doesn't charge an hourly fee. And people don't have to worry about asking what they think might be a "stupid" question.
They just type it.
That convenience is incredibly powerful.
And younger consumers are embracing it much faster. Roughly one-quarter of Gen Z and millennials who sought financial guidance reported using AI, compared with 16% of Gen X and only 7% of baby boomers.
Those numbers will almost certainly matter to the insurance industry.
Today's 30-year-old asking AI about investing is tomorrow's 50-year-old asking it about life insurance, and eventually tomorrow's Medicare beneficiary asking it to explain Medicare Advantage.
The behavior is being learned now.
"There's No AI That Is a Fiduciary"
One comment from the reporting surrounding the Gallup survey deserves considerably more attention.
Financial planner Bobbi Rebell made a simple observation: "There's no AI that is a fiduciary."
That may be one of the most important distinctions in the entire debate over artificial intelligence and professional financial guidance.
But I would take the point even further.
The problem isn't simply whether AI has a legal obligation to put someone's interests first.
The problem is that AI doesn't truly know the person sitting across from it.
A good insurance broker doesn't begin an appointment by immediately recommending a product.
They ask questions.
Sometimes a lot of questions.
What coverage do you already have?
What are you trying to accomplish?
What medications do you take?
Who are your doctors?
What can you comfortably afford?
Do you travel?
Are there other people involved in the decision?
What happens if your health changes?
What matters more to you: predictability, flexibility, lower premiums or broader access?
And sometimes the most important information comes from a question the consumer never would have thought to ask.
That's difficult to replicate with a chatbot because the quality of an AI answer is heavily dependent on the information it receives.
If the consumer doesn't know that something matters, they may never tell the AI about it.
And if the AI never asks the right question, it may confidently provide an answer based on an incomplete picture.
Insurance Makes This Problem Even Bigger
Insurance is particularly vulnerable to this problem because insurance products often look much simpler than they really are.
Consider Medicare.
A consumer might ask an AI:
"What's the best Medicare Advantage plan in my ZIP code?"
It sounds like a straightforward question.
But an experienced Medicare broker immediately knows that there isn't enough information to answer it.
What doctors do you see?
What hospitals do you prefer?
What prescriptions do you take?
Which pharmacies do you use?
Do you travel?
Do you have chronic conditions?
Do you qualify for Medicaid or Extra Help?
Are you comfortable with a network?
How important are dental benefits?
What is your tolerance for maximum out-of-pocket exposure?
The plan with the lowest premium isn't necessarily the best plan.
The plan with the biggest dental allowance isn't necessarily the best plan.
And the plan that was appropriate for the consumer last year may not be appropriate next year.
The same problem exists with life insurance.
Someone could ask an AI whether term insurance or permanent insurance is "better."
There isn't a universally correct answer.
Better for what?
Income replacement?
Estate planning?
Final expenses?
Business succession?
Cash accumulation?
A temporary mortgage obligation?
Leaving money to children?
The product cannot be separated from the person buying it.
AI Is Still Going to Change Insurance
None of this means insurance agents should dismiss artificial intelligence.
That would probably be a mistake.
AI is going to become an increasingly important part of how consumers research insurance.
In fact, that process has already started in healthcare. Gallup separately reported in 2026 that 25% of Americans had used an AI tool or chatbot for health information or advice. Most were using it to supplement traditional healthcare rather than completely replace it.
Insurance may follow a similar path.
Consumers won't necessarily choose between AI or an insurance broker.
They may use both.
A future Medicare prospect may walk into an appointment having already spent two hours talking to ChatGPT.
A life insurance prospect may already understand the basic difference between term and whole life.
A business owner may have asked AI what types of insurance their company should carry before ever contacting an agent.
That doesn't necessarily make the broker less valuable.
It changes what the broker is valuable for.
The Agent's Job May Shift From Information to Judgment
For decades, one source of value for an insurance agent was simply having access to information the consumer didn't have.
The internet already changed that.
AI will accelerate it.
Basic information is becoming nearly free.
What is a deductible?
AI can explain it.
What's the difference between an HMO and PPO?
AI can explain it.
What does guaranteed issue mean?
AI can explain it.
What is the difference between term and whole life?
AI can explain that too.
Insurance agents probably shouldn't be afraid of losing that part of the job.
Because explaining definitions was never where the greatest value of a good broker came from.
The value is judgment.
It's recognizing the detail the consumer overlooked.
It's knowing which question needs to be asked next.
It's understanding that the cheapest policy isn't always the best policy.
It's knowing that something technically allowed by an underwriting guide may not be how a carrier is actually treating cases right now.
It's looking at five pieces of information individually and realizing that together they change the recommendation.
AI is extraordinarily good at processing information.
Experience is still extraordinarily valuable at understanding context.
The best insurance professionals of the next decade will probably use both.
There Is Also an Opportunity Here
There is another side of this that the insurance industry shouldn't overlook.
Consumers increasingly using AI may actually create an opportunity for independent brokers.
Why?
Because AI makes comparison easier.
And comparison is exactly where independent distribution can shine.
A captive agent represents a particular company.
An independent broker can potentially look across multiple carriers and products.
As consumers become accustomed to asking technology to compare alternatives, they may become less satisfied with being shown a single company's solution.
That could increase the importance of brokers who can demonstrate why a particular recommendation was made and what alternatives were considered.
The broker becomes less of a salesperson standing between the consumer and information and more of an interpreter standing between an overwhelming amount of information and a decision.
That's a much more valuable role.
Trust IS the Product
There is an irony in all of this.
The more information technology gives consumers, the more difficult it can become to know what information to trust.
AI can generate an answer in seconds.
Google can generate thousands of answers.
Social media can generate thousands of opinions.
What consumers increasingly lack isn't information.
It's confidence.
Confidence that the information applies to them.
Confidence that important details weren't missed.
Confidence that the recommendation wasn't based on an incomplete prompt.
Confidence that somebody will still be there six months later when something goes wrong.
That may ultimately be where the independent insurance broker becomes more important, not less.
Artificial intelligence doesn't need to replace insurance agents to transform the insurance industry.
It only needs to change what consumers expect before they ever speak to one.
And that change is already underway.
The agents and brokers who resist AI entirely may eventually find themselves competing against it. The ones who simply hand every decision over to AI may create an entirely different set of problems.
The opportunity is somewhere in the middle.
Use AI for what it does extraordinarily well: finding information, organizing it, explaining complicated subjects and identifying possibilities.
Then use experienced human professionals for what still requires something more difficult to automate: asking the right questions, understanding context, exercising judgment and accepting responsibility for the recommendation.
Because when someone's health, family, retirement or financial security is involved, having an answer isn't quite the same thing as knowing it's the right answer.