Using AI As A Tool For Your Long-Term Financial Plan

AI is everywhere in the market right now, but most people still have the same practical question: does it actually belong in a long-term financial plan, and if so, how? We tackle that head-on by separating AI as an investment theme from AI as a day-to-day planning tool, and we keep it grounded in what matters for real households: risk tolerance, diversification, and staying on track when the news gets loud.

On the investing side, we explain why many investors already own meaningful artificial intelligence exposure simply by holding diversified equity funds like S&P 500 index mutual funds and ETFs. That basket approach includes major AI players like Microsoft and Nvidia without forcing you to gamble on picking the next breakout stock. We also dig into why some of the biggest AI names can surge and then cool off as investors shift from excitement to demanding results like earnings, margins, and cash flow. That “show me” phase can be a healthy sign when it helps broaden market leadership beyond a handful of mega-cap stocks.

Then we move to AI in financial planning. We talk about AI-driven research for do-it-yourself investors, the real risk of overconfidence, and why a quick answer is not the same as the right answer for your taxes, retirement income plan, or Social Security claiming strategy. From our side as a wealth management firm, we share how tools like Claude can boost efficiency in marketing and website work so we can spend more time serving clients face-to-face, not less. We also address the big fear topic: jobs, disruption, and whether AI ultimately makes the economy more productive and affordable.

If this conversation helps you think differently about AI and your money, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave us a quick review so more people can find it. What’s your biggest question about AI and your financial future?

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Transcript

Welcome And Big Question

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Four Seasons Podcast, brought to you by BH Wealth Strategies, serving Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia since 1966. Here, we guide you through the ever-changing seasons of your financial journey, offering insights to help you grow, protect, and enjoy your wealth. Ready to turn your financial dreams into reality? Dare to dream. And now, here's your host, President of BH Wealth Strategies, Jeff Bingham.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Intelligence is reshaping everything from investing strategies to daily financial decision making, and its role in long-term planning is growing fast. Welcome back, everyone. Skip MonicoPeducer, back in the studio with the star of the Four Seasons podcast, president of BH Wealth Strategies, Mr. Jeff Bingham. Jeff, how's it going?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

It's going great, Skip. How about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Doing just fine, doing just fine. And as I mentioned in the tease there, uh, you know, a lot going on in the world today that's affecting financial planning and and the financial stability of you know locally and you know uh globally. So let's let's get cranking. Today's question is does AI play into a long-term financial plan as an investment and or as a tool? Go for it.

AI Exposure Through Diversification

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Yeah, uh great question, and something that uh we talk about uh with a lot of regularity, if you will, here in this in the conference room recording the podcast this morning uh with my clients, uh also with with my staff and with uh with Matt uh you know, Matt Bingham, who does the who helps with the podcast on this end. He and I have had a number of conversations about it. Um and and so what I would say is that it without question, as my father used to always say, it's gonna play into long-term investing and then also in helping decision-making processes and designs of various things. So let's kind of break it down and kind of maybe piece by piece talk about it a little bit, I guess, uh first from an investment perspective, just how where where it fits in and how do you put it into portfolio. And that's really pretty, generally speaking, that that's pretty easy, right? Because again, you know, when you're when you're buying stock market or equity, you know, type of investments, whether it be individually, individual stocks, mutual funds, or exchange traded funds known as ETFs, I mean, you're getting exposure to to AI companies through that through that uh diversification that we certainly would be putting into portfolios just if you own the SP 500 index in one of those uh either mutual funds or ETFs that I just talked about right there. You've got a great deal of exposure to uh AI companies from Microsoft to NVIDIA, who's making the chips in the AI. So you're you're covering it there from an investment perspective. Um, so I think that exposure is taking place. So we're not, we're not, at least from our perspective, we're not trying to go out and identify who's gonna be the next high flyer in the AI market and is gonna develop the next leg of that and level of that. We're letting our investment uh, you know, um committee teams that we work with at APC Capital that I've talked a little bit about in here, you know, identify those types of things to help us construct a portfolio based on the criteria that we give them, the risk tolerance of our clients, et cetera, that we do that. So that that exposure takes place. I think the some notable things along AI as an investment is that it really was exploding from a from a return standpoint, you know, through Microsoft, NVIDIA, uh you could be Amazon, any of these, all you know, even Google, all these have these AI places. And we hear about ChatGBT, uh, you know, we've got now you'll hear about Anthropic and all these kind of these these names that are out there, these AI companies. And so what we're beginning to see, and this really started probably late last year, certainly rolling into this year, is that, you know, there's been an incredible amount of capital poured into AI to develop it, right? And so these companies, in the anticipation of what it's gonna do for those companies, uh, is driven their stock prices, you know, almost asymmetrically up in so in some instances. They've just gone up incredible amounts. So what you really have begun to see is this year has begun to unfold is that kind of those household names, a few of which I just mentioned there a moment ago, is that they really have have kind of been punished, and that's not the word that I might could probably come up with a better word, but punished in their stock price a little bit early part of this year, where they've pulled back from those highs because again, all the money that's being spent and poured into AI, the market, the investors that are out there that are putting their their money into these companies, right, they want to start seeing some results. They need to start seeing the profit, right? The margins need to be there for the profitability of those things. And so, you know, that's still yet to really be seen. There's still more capital being applied to it than there is earnings on top of those kind of things. Now, their earnings are still good, but from a money being spent on it to the earnings that are coming back, it's like it's kind of a show-me the money kind of thing from an investor perspective in these companies right now. And I think that's really a good thing to see because what we have begun to see uh is that the we've had a broadening out of the breadth of this market underneath these, you know, four to five to seven companies that have just pulled this market along for the last three or four years. The magnificent seven, we've talked about the mag seven on here a number of times, and those who have been in my office have heard me talk about it as well. And it's really just kind of drugged the market along with it. And now what we're beginning to see is that the mag seven has kind of lost a little bit of its shine, is that uh the the other you know components of the market are more, you know, some of those would be more uh ancillary to the AI thing, but also just good old-fashioned, you know, companies that that provide goods and services, energy companies, financial healthcare, all those kind of companies that are also in there that are also that are that are uh and we'll get into this, that are benefiting on their bottom line numbers from AI, helping them to be more productive, more efficient, uh, driving their bottom line. So that's you know, again, so as it's fallen off of the Mag 7, the the creators, the developers, the providers of AI, the users now of AI are beginning to uh en reap some of the uh the benefit of AI. So that's that's kind of where we are from an investment perspective. And I think that's a very healthy thing that we're seeing right there, kind of underneath the headlines, right? When you pull back the covers and you look at what you own, you know, just look at the SP 500 and look at the 500 companies in there. And um, you know, when seven companies are leading the charge and providing, you know, 40% or 30 to 40 percent of the returns over the last several years. If you look at it, we kind of just drive that, you know, a 20 let's say a 20% return and you know, a handful of companies is driving you know 40% of that. Let's say if that's just a number right there, on a 20% return, that's eight percent you know of return coming from those, and the others are just kind of you know helping a little bit along along those lines right there. So we've again what we've seen is kind of a leveling out of that. That's that shows that the market is uh really getting healthier uh in a way than it was, which is good to see after half years of really solid performance uh as we now move now into this fourth year to see where we're going. Um, you know, I think that bodes very, very well going forward. So uh invest what we invest in perspective. So I'll kind of toss it back over to you to ask the second part of that question and and follow up on any of that if you want to.

AI As A Planning Research Tool

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Well, that makes sense, you know, as as far as an investment goes, it it it's a it's definitely a net positive, it sounds like. What about as a tool for actually researching and uh doing uh AI-driven research uh for financial planning? Is are there you know, is it possible that uh that there are risks involved in in using AI as a tool for financial planning?

How The Firm Uses AI Daily

Jobs Fears And Productivity Reality

Long-Term Risks And Personal Impact

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Uh that's uh I'm sorry, I've got to gotta kind of I gotta kind of unpack that a little bit. Is the risk involved in it? And again, I think there's two two components to that question. One is that from an advisor, an advisory firm like ourselves, a wealth advisory firm like ourselves, we're using a uh, you know, now uh to help us to be more efficient, to uh be higher in productivity. And it is helping us immensely. And I'll come back and touch on that and kind of you know dig into that a little bit. I think from a from an investor's perspective out there, that's the second, that's the other side of that coin. Um I think it can also be very beneficial because you can you can certainly ask a lot of questions and you can drill into those things. Again, I think it's in some ways, it's not unlike it was, you know, let's say 30 years ago and probably a little longer than that now. You know, this is kind of the Web 2.0, right? The you know, the the initial internet, you know, when we start back in the early mid 90s when that comes out, and you could search everything and that and that kind of grew and developed, and you could Google everything. So, you know, it's like Dr. Google or a you know, investment advisor Google. You go out there and find, you know, your own information. So for the for those that are, you know, kind of do-it-yourselfers, if you will, and those that might be thinking, oh, do I want to pay an advisor? Can I do this on my own, that kind of thing, you know, first Web 1.0 kind of began to to show that, well, there's a lot of information out here. Maybe I can do this on my own, right? With all the information and I can do it better than I can with an advisor, you know, after their cost and their fees and all the guidance that they provide and all those kind of things. I get that. I think what most people saw from Web 1.0 is that that wasn't necessarily the case, right? I can get a lot of I can get a lot of answers, but am I asking the right questions and how do I apply it to mine? So I think it breeds a little bit of overconfidence. And then, you know, one of the things that where you begin to kind of see maybe that overconfidence kind of, you know, kind of uh unravel, if you will, would be during uh times of of distress and stress in the markets, like we're going through right this minute as we talk with the uh with the Iranian war that's taking place. And we'll touch on that in a in another podcast that we're gonna record here in a bit to kind of get more involved and kind of unpack that. But that's when, you know, can AI, you know, whether can it be Web 1.0 or Web Point, you know, Web 2.0, can it answer those questions for you? Can it keep you on track? Can it, you know, can it really dig in and know you like an advisor does and give you, you know, the appropriate information? Maybe you can, maybe it can't. But I think again, fast forward to to where we are with, as I was talking about, with AI being Web 2.0, if you will. Again, I think it I think it can be an unbelievably great tool for for individuals that are out there that aren't advisors to to begin to to answer some questions, but also probably, honestly, it probably makes them think more about what their real questions are and how those questions and the and what how it how it relates to their own situation. So again, I think it's a tool. It's not a replacement for uh for advisors at all. I think it, I think actually uh it's a compliment, uh, it's a complimentary thing as a client, a prospective client, or even my existing clients can use AI, come up with questions, frame them, come in and ask them with us as we sit down in one-on-ones. So they've got a little more information, they know a little bit more, and so the conversations that we're having on a one-on-one basis, whether it be about investments that we hold or taxes or retirement plan distributions or when to claim social security, you know, I mean, AI, just like any other thing, can give you some, it can give you some boilerplate, you know, information, you know, like generalized stuff, but it's still gonna be hard for it to be specific to you on a one-on-one, one size fits one situation. So uh so I think there's that. And then I think from a from a standpoint of how we're using it here uh as a as a firm, right? Uh, and we're growing into it, and it really is quite extraordinary. Um, you know, and like I said, I'm gonna use Matt again. We had a conversation where we used it on a kind of an ad campaign that we were, that we were putting out. And uh I took a document that I'd gotten that we wanted to kind of use and kind of splash, you know, kind of a marketing campaign out to clients on some fixed income investment that is that is just a really great opportunity. So it was it was given to us, you know, from from a financial institution. We wanted to take that financial institution and take it uh and put it into you know kind of a client-friendly kind of situation to say, hey, this is something you really want to raise your hand and ask the question about. So, you know, we're marketing, it's a commercial, if you will, if you know, through through using, you know, uh social media platforms, using our email campaigns and and and whatnot. So we I sent that to Matt. Matt worked on it and created a very nice and uh you know beautiful campaign to send out to clients. Jake and I took it and and put it into uh into Anthropic's uh technology called Claude. And it took what Matt, it took what we had received, it took what Matt worked on, and it took that idea and it just made it into even a more, you know, just a really beautiful piece uh that was out there. And so that's a collaborative effort with with all the all the parties that gave us, you know, not quite the finished product, but an idea of what a finished advertisement could look like that we went back and then brushed it up with our, you know, with human hands on it. So again, but again, it would take us to do what we did right there. We would have to go to, you know, an advertising, you know, agency or some some of the places that we've utilized over the years. And it would have cost us, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to put that idea together and keep those kind of folks on retainer and stuff to kind of do that. And we were able to do it in about, you know, in in a in a half an hour's time. Uh and so, and then we're using it uh to create, you know, templates for our for our website. It evaluated our website, Claude did, and came back with some incredibly good ideas, some things that we hadn't thought about, or some things that would take us a long time to, you know, a good amount of time to kind of write, create, think about, kind of bat it back and forth, and then put it out there and you know, and continue to kind of to curate that for for our purposes. We were able to let it look at our website and some of the back page stuff that we were still a little uh uh late on getting, you know, kind of refining and getting it better. I always use the expression, our website looks great. We look like a movie set, it looks great on the surface, but some of the depth and detail, you know, behind that, you kind of walk in and there's really not much to it, right? So we really kind of began to work on that. Uh and it was able to read our website, took our ideas, and uh and and just put together a great idea around our faith-based driven things. It put our our four seasons into it. Uh, and now we've got to go back and put the human touch on that because we will go back and curate it, cull it down, and do it. But that would take us forever to do. That's just a couple of ideas. So, you know, um, I do not believe much to many people's, you know, contrary to a lot of popular belief out there, my opinion that right now is AI is not gonna be a job, it's not gonna disrupt employment, it's not gonna create high unemployment that's out there. It is gonna change the landscape. It is gonna, there'll be some creative destruction in it. But as I was, Matt and I were having a discussion about it, uh, literally about this and what it did to take his work. And he's like, oh, it's gonna replace me. I was like, my opinion, no, it's not gonna replace you. As a matter of fact, it's gonna make us so much better, so much more productive, so much more efficient that it's gonna require us to bring in more human capital, right? To bring in people to manage the process. But what we're gonna be able to do, as opposed to spending more time behind the scenes, we're gonna be able to spend more time servicing our client in front of our clients and making their four seasons experience that much better because we don't have to always be, you know, behind the scenes working on, you know, the things that they see that we put out to them. And that takes a lot of time. And that, and like I said, AI is gonna is gonna make that much, much more efficient. Uh, and I think that's gonna be true. Um, and I think there are gonna be a lot of companies, and I'll wind this down here. I think there's gonna be a lot of companies, whether small businesses and large and large corporations that are gonna use AI and they're gonna use it to get rid of maybe some a lot of employees, you know, to cut their staff. And you're already seeing some of that. But I think what's gonna happen as this thing really goes forward is that I think those companies are gonna be sorry that that's what they did because again, what they're not seeing is the complement that it's gonna be. I think it has the opportunity to increase employment or at least keep it where it is. There'll be different jobs and all those kind of things, but I think it'll also drive wages and production up. And I think that begins to help with the affordability crisis that's out there. So I at the end in the short term, I'm very excited about what AI can do. I think it can help the economy uh much more than people are seeing, both both in just the the margins and the profitability, but also the cost and the affordability down downstream to the consumer, the American citizen, but also to the American worker, which I think it will drive their wages up. And as affordability and productivity goes up, costs will go down. And so I think when you complement those things in the short run, I would be very excited about it. I think you can be pretty darn, I'm still pretty frightened about the long-term, you know, aspects of it because it is incredibly intuitive. Uh, and that's frightening into itself. But that's for another day, uh, you know, to kind of have that conversation. But uh again, um fascinating what he can do, learning about it for someone like myself that has visu, you know, that has uh visual issues and uh challenges, what it what it has been able to help me do and navigate the world without sight in a in a in a very heavy numbers and narrative world. I need to read a lot of things, I need to consume a lot of information to be uh valuable to my clients, right? And it's really helping me do that in in ways that are that are almost immeasurable.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Awesome. So efficiency enhancement, not replacement. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

I mean, I really do believe that to be the case. I've seen reports to the contrary, or there's a report out there, and and I know we're going long on this, but called the Satur uh Centuri, uh Centuri report um that talks about you know unemployment being at 10.5% by the by the year 2030. And I think that's absolutely overblown. We'll actually send out a blog that uh that my buddy at Apis Capital, David Wagner, wrote a response to it after after reading it. You know, I mean, they're trying to predict unemployment and employment, you know, you know, four years at downstream from now when we can't predict employment numbers from one month to the next and we revise going backwards all the time. I think it's a nonsense report, but it's got a lot of traction amongst a lot of folks that are out there. So uh, you know, that's where a lot of this, you know, kind of fear and hand wringing takes place out there in the, you know, in the headline, the noise of the noise versus the news. I think the news is what I tried to talk about a moment ago. I think the noise is it's gonna be so disruptive. You know, people are gonna lose their jobs, and there's no question that's gonna happen. But what people don't see behind that is that the jobs are gonna be created. Technology has been disrupting, um, you know, has been disrupting economic cycles and uh for centuries, right? Since the beginning of time. We've been technology is always moving forward. This is just the technology of the 21st century. So uh I don't think it's I mean it's different, but it's not, you know, history, if it doesn't repeat, it rhymes. And what it what it generally proves is that it makes us better, not worse, and doesn't get rid of all the jobs. I mean, think about go back 30 years ago, you know. So, you know, we're still at pretty much full employment right now. So there we go.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Well, Jeff, thanks for breaking that down. We'll end on a positive note. It's gonna make us better. It's gonna make us better. That's right. All right, Jeff, thanks so much. We'll revisit this again. Uh it's a deep subject. Keep fake, man. God bless America. All right, absolutely, brother. Have a great rest of the day. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Thanks for tuning in to the Four Seasons Podcast, brought to you by BH Wealth Strategies, where your financial success is our priority. Schedule your free 20 minute consultation today by calling four two three two four seven one one five two. Or by visiting bhrretire.com. Take the first step toward making your financial dreams come true. Until next time, remember, every season is the right season to plan for your future. Securities and registered investment advisory services offered through Silver Oak Securities, Inc., member FINRA SIPC, BH Wealth Strategies, and Silver Oak Securities Inc. are not affiliated.