Wealthy Americans are warming to artificial intelligence in their everyday lives, but that familiarity has not translated into confidence when it comes to their portfolios.
Janus Henderson Investors’ survey of 1,000 US investors with at least $250,000 in investable assets examines attitudes across three distinct areas: personal use of AI for financial decisions, how clients feel about advisors deploying the technology, and whether AI-linked companies belong in a long-term portfolio.
Nine out of ten respondents said they have at least some concerns about investing in AI, but roughly a third of respondents said they use AI tools continually or often, a figure that climbs sharply among Millennials (72%) and among investors with $3 million or more in assets (47%).
However, widespread familiarity has done little to erode the barriers people cite when it comes to AI-powered investment guidance.
Three in four respondents flagged concerns about biased or conflicted recommendations, nearly as many worried about data privacy, and 72% said they simply do not trust AI-driven guidance enough to act on it.
The survey tested this skepticism directly, presenting participants with identical financial scenarios attributed either to an AI tool or a human professional.
When an optimistic market outlook — a 20% gain for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months — was attributed to a human strategist, it shifted investor expectations by an average of nearly 6 percentage points. The same forecast from an AI moved the needle by only about 3 points. Notably, negative outlooks showed no such gap: a prediction of steep market losses carried equal weight regardless of its source.
"AI can help us comb through vast amounts of data and provide us with information. But financial advice clients aren't just buying information; they are buying confidence, reassurance, accountability, and advocacy — intangible benefits that require a human relationship," said Ben Rizzuto, CFP, CRPS, CPWA, Director, Wealth Strategist at Janus Henderson.
A separate finding reinforced the accountability expectation: 85% of respondents said they hold their financial advisor ultimately responsible for any AI-generated advice or materials that come from that advisor — a dynamic that places the compliance and oversight burden squarely on human professionals.
When it comes to how advisors themselves use AI, client comfort shifts dramatically depending on the application. Administrative tasks and educational content drew broad support, with 87% of respondents saying they would feel good or neutral about AI being used in those contexts. The numbers flip for more personal interactions. Forty percent said they would be upset to learn their advisor used AI to automatically respond to emails or texts, and 33% said the same about AI-generated investment recommendations.
Perhaps the most urgent finding for advisors is that 79% of respondents said they would be upset if they discovered their advisor had used AI without disclosing it, but only one in three said their advisor had ever discussed the topic with them at all.
"The industry faces challenges when it comes to using AI for advice, client communications, and investments. While it has the potential to be a valuable tool for advisory practices, advisors will need to deploy AI in a strategic, thoughtful manner," said Matt Sommer, Head of Specialist Consulting Group at Janus Henderson. "The bottom line is that the demand for human-led decision making and personal connection will not be displaced by artificial intelligence; in fact, AI may actually increase the value investors place on those qualities."
On the investment side, sentiment is divided almost evenly. Just under half of respondents expressed confidence that companies heavily invested in AI will outperform over the long run, while the majority remained skeptical.
The most commonly cited concern was that AI simply won't live up to the hype (28%), followed by fears around bias or insufficient safeguards (24%) and the risk of inflated valuations (19%). Millennials were the clear outlier on the bullish side, with 76% expressing confidence in AI-focused companies' long-term return potential, compared to 55% among Gen X and just 30% among Boomers.
Short-term anxiety and longer-term optimism coexist in the data in a way that suggests most investors see AI as a structural shift rather than a passing cycle. Two thirds said they are concerned about an AI bubble forming in the next year, yet 61% expect the technology to have a net positive effect on market returns over the next five years — with the strongest conviction concentrated among younger investors.
"AI skepticism is understandable, but investors risk failing to distinguish between valuation noise and long-term structural change," said Denny Fish, Portfolio Manager on the Global Technology and Innovation Team at Janus Henderson. "There will be no bigger secular theme than AI in our lifetime. But investors need patience and discipline, because while AI will create massive winners over time, it will also expose meaningful losers along the way. We believe this bifurcation will create opportunities for active managers."
One gap stood out as particularly striking: nearly half of all respondents believed they currently have no exposure to AI whatsoever.
Given how deeply the technology is embedded across major market indexes and technology holdings, the survey authors noted that this perception is almost certainly wrong — and that advisors may need to help clients understand where AI exposure already lives within their existing portfolios.
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