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Sep 23, 2025

How Canadians Can Use AI in Everyday Personal Finance

by Chris White

AI as a Personal Financial Coach

Many Canadians have been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, whether it’s a chatbot, like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, or it’s an AI-built application like video editors, content creation, audio translation, note-taking apps, etc. It has become a fast-evolving space, and we believe the tools will continue to grow at a rapid pace, but even in these early days of widespread AI, we feel there are many ways to utilize AI as a finance companion.

In this article, we want to explore a few ways that AI can help Canadians gain insights and help them explore financial scenarios and track their goals. Whether it’s a budget, planning a big purchase, or just cutting down on the grocery bill, AI can help with saving time and money. A critical disclaimer before we begin is that AI is not a substitute for a financial professional, and individuals should do their own research and calculations to ensure that all numbers and figures are accurate.

Debt Management and Payoff Strategies

Debt is a critical tool for individuals to employ leverage to buy larger purchases they normally would not be able to afford initially. Whether it’s a mortgage, car loan, student loans, or other, many Canadians have debt in one form or another, and using AI as a coach, Canadians can potentially save some time and energy. For example, AI can quickly analyze and review interest rates and loans to help optimize repayment strategies.

Not only is this useful in helping with debt repayment strategies, but AI can also run “what-if” scenarios for demonstrating how extra payments, changes in interest rates, or debt consolidation could impact a payoff timeline and overall interest costs.

For example, individuals can try out some of these prompts to review and assess the results:

  1. 1.     Student Loan Payoff: “Help build a repayment plan to pay off $25,000 in student loans in 7 years, while still saving for retirement”.
    1. What-if scenario: “What if savings increase to $600 instead of $500 per month?”
  2. 2.     Credit Card Reduction: “Create a strategy to pay off $8,000 in credit card debt within three years, while still contributing to an emergency fund.”
    1. What-if scenario: “If the monthly payments are increased from $100, what are the potential interest savings over three years?”

AI Can Help Save on Groceries

One of the largest weekly expenses for most Canadian families is at the grocery store or on takeout. Using AI can assist with creating meal plans and as a “grocery coach”. A simple prompt to an AI chatbot with a weekly grocery budget, dietary preferences, and how many meals are needed can be a good starting point. An AI chatbot can then generate a cost-effective meal plan that optimizes a grocery list by reusing ingredients across multiple dishes. With a meal plan in place, AI can create a grocery list tailored to those meals, organized by category (produce, bakery, proteins, etc.) The use of AI can also help identify which items are driving up a grocery bill and can offer cheaper alternatives.

For example, individuals can try out some of these prompts to review and assess the results:

  1. 1.     Optimizing a grocery list: “Here are the planned meals for this week, build the cheapest possible grocery list”.
  2. 2.     Build a cost-effective meal plan: “Make a healthy 7-day meal plan using cost-effective ingredients, reusing ingredients where possible.”

Side-by-Side Loan and Financing Comparisons

Whether someone is financing a car, considering a new line of credit, or reviewing credit card offers, understanding loan terms can be overwhelming to many Canadians. This represents another area where AI can act as a personal companion in assisting with understanding and breaking down complex loan terms and details.

Loan offers with interest rates, loan amounts, fees, and repayment schedules can all be analyzed by AI, and these details can be compared against each other to determine what makes the most sense for an individual. AI tools can also highlight hidden details that many borrowers may overlook, such as:

  • Annual Percentage Rate (APR): This is the true cost of borrowing, including fees
  • Early repayment penalties: The fees associated with paying off a loan faster
  • Impact on cash flow: How a loan payment can fit into a monthly budget

For example, individuals can try out some of these prompts to review and assess the results:

  1. 1.     Comparing car loans: “Compare a mid-size SUV for $35,000 at a 6.5% APR over five years versus another SUV for $30,000 at a 7.2% APR over five years.”
  2. 2.     Analyzing an early repayment strategy: “Analyze the impact of making an extra $5,000 lump-sum payment toward a $22,000 auto loan at a 7% APR with three years remaining.”
    1. What-if scenario: “What if that $5,000 is split into extra monthly payments instead of a single lump sum? How might that impact the payoff period and potential interest savings?”

Travel and Lifestyle Planning

For Canadians who are planning vacations, weekend getaways, or just general day-to-day lifestyle expenses, AI chatbots and tools can assist with budgeting, comparing options, and scheduling activities. Flights, accommodations, and the best months to book during the season can all be reviewed by AI tools.

For example, individuals can try some of these prompts to review and assess the results:

  1. 1.     Planning a 7-day vacation: “Plan a 7-day vacation to [insert destination] for a family of [insert number of families] with a total budget of [budget], including flights, hotel, and activities”
  1. a.     What-if scenario: “What if we book the vacation one week or one month earlier/later? How would this affect total costs?”
  2. 2.     Subscription trimming: “Here are my monthly subscriptions (music, entertainment, etc.). Which ones overlap, and where could I cut to save money?”

Key Takeaways

As consumer generative AI chatbots and AI tools are still a burgeoning technology, we feel individuals must fact-check and do their own research on the topics discussed with AI tools but we also feel that it is an incredibly powerful tool that can optimize everyday financial tasks. There are countless ways that Canadians can use AI as a personal assistant or companion to enhance and develop their understanding of personal finance, but also potentially bring on some real savings in their everyday lives. It is not that AI will replace human judgment, but instead, we feel it can enhance the knowledge and understanding for those who are curious.

Chris White, CFA, Head of Research for 5i Research Inc.