The lack of confidence in ChatGPT’s investing prowess is important as financial institutions explore using ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) to guide investments and provide services to clients.
Keep reading for a full report on how some U.S. adults are using ChatGPT for stock advice and their views on the artificial intelligence (AI) tool when it comes to investing.
Key findings
- The Motley Fool’s survey respondents, baby boomers in particular, have some skepticism about the accuracy of ChatGPT’s stock picks and the performance of its recommendations.
- Performance of ChatGPT’s stock picks is more important to respondents of The Motley Fool survey than other factors such as the cost of using the tool and the speed at which ChatGPT can make stock recommendations.
- Most respondents to The Motley Fool survey would consider using ChatGPT for stock picks in the future but would not solely rely on it for investing recommendations.
47% of survey respondents have used ChatGPT for stock tips
Forty-seven percent of respondents to The Motley Fool survey reported having used ChatGPT for investing advice.
Other surveys done after The Motley Fool survey show a smaller fraction of the U.S. population has used ChatGPT. For example, a Pew survey from May 2023 found that 14% of U.S. adults at the time had used ChatGPT for entertainment, learning something new, or to help with work.
However, a separate survey from Bank of America found that 59% of respondents have used ChatGPT.
The percentage of respondents to The Motley Fool survey that has used ChatGPT, 47%, may be high. Still, it is likely a reflection of ChatGPT’s fast-growing user base and the excitement around the AI tool when the survey was run in April 2023.
It took ChatGPT five days to reach 1 million users and just two months to reach 100 million users, shattering previous records. For comparison, it took Instagram 2.5 months to reach 1 million downloads and more than two years to garner 100 million users.
In March 2023 alone, roughly 1.6 billion users visited ChatGPT, according to Similarweb, a web analytics company.
It’s difficult to find another tool in the finance space that has been adopted so quickly. But it’s also impossible to find another application in general that has been adopted at scale as quickly as ChatGPT.
“This scale of this percentage is surprising, and yet it confirms something many of us are witnessing,” said Asit Sharma, senior analyst and lead advisor at The Motley Fool. “The nature of search, and what we require from it, is changing in real time, and millions of Americans are eager to try out this new world hands-on.”
“The rush on the part of companies like Microsoft and Alphabet to provide front-end tools (and back-end capacity) for ChatGPT, Bard, and other large language models, similarly supports the survey’s finding,” he added.
“Interest is exploding in harnessing the capabilities of these models for use cases across innumerable industries. So while the sheer percentage of Americans test-driving ChatGPT for investing is eye-opening, it’s not hard to understand,” Sharma said.
The Motley Fool did not ask respondents how they used ChatGPT to get investing tips, how in-depth their interaction was with ChatGPT, or what actions they took from the query.
Millennials and Gen Z are most likely to have used ChatGPT for investing advice
Millennials and Gen Z respondents to The Motley Fool survey were most likely to report having used ChatGPT for investing advice. Fifty-three percent of millennials and 50% of Gen Z survey respondents used ChatGPT to find stock picks.
Older Americans have not been so quick to turn to ChatGPT for investing advice, based on The Motley Fool survey. Just 25% of baby boomer respondents say they’ve used ChatGPT to help find stocks to buy.
Gen X respondents lean closer to younger Americans; 46% say they have used ChatGPT for investment recommendations.
