Every week, we pull together the most relevant stories for your personal finances.
🤖 4 in 5 less experienced investors have used AI for help with investing - the FCA says many don't realise what protection they're missing out on
💰 4% rule, drawdown or annuity - here's which retirement strategy actually keeps your lifestyle going
☀️ Plug-in solar panels just went on sale in the UK - here's what the £110-a-year saving actually depends on
🗣️ This week we asked a coach: I've started using ChatGPT to help me decide what shares to buy - is that actually a risky habit?
The Financial Conduct Authority has warned that young investors are increasingly turning to AI tools for financial decisions without understanding what protection - or lack of it - sits behind that advice.
Its research found 56% of 18-40 year old investors trust AI-generated content more than they trust TV or radio (47%) or newspapers (46%), and 80% of less experienced investors have used AI to help with an investment decision.
The bigger concern is what people think that trust buys them: 44% wrongly believe information from mainstream AI chatbots is FCA-regulated, 38% think it's fine to invest purely on what an AI tells them, and 32% mistakenly believe they could get compensation from a financial protection scheme if AI-generated advice led to losses.
A general-purpose AI chatbot can be a genuinely useful research tool - explaining jargon, summarising a company, or pointing you toward things worth looking into further, which is exactly the kind of use the FCA says AI can help with.
The gap it's worried about is the jump from "AI helped me understand this" to "AI told me to buy this, so it must be safe." Unlike regulated financial advice, there's no FSCS protection and no route to compensation if a chatbot simply gets it wrong.
The reassuring part: most people (73%) already know AI can produce inaccurate information, and 86% know to double-check sources - so the message isn't "stop using AI," it's to keep treating it as a research assistant rather than a substitute for professional support or your own judgement, especially before you act on it with real money.
Worth knowing:
This gap is sharpest among the least experienced investors - the 80% AI-usage figure specifically relates to people newer to investing, exactly the group with the least experience to sense-check what a chatbot tells them.
Not sure whether you can trust what AI is telling you about your finances? A Bippit coach can help you sense-check your thinking and make more informed decisions.
New modelling by Hargreaves Lansdown in partnership with Oxford Economics, comparing five ways to turn a pension pot into retirement income found some strategies are far more likely than others to let people keep their pre-retirement lifestyle.
The well-known "4% rule" - withdrawing 4% of your pot in year one, then adjusting for inflation each year - is designed to make a pot last, but only around half of all households following it could actually maintain their old standard of living.
Spending it down faster, on the assumption you'll live to the current average life expectancy of 87, increased that proportion to 70.5% - but leaves you exposed if you live longer and end up relying solely on the state pension. A level annuity bought at 67 helped 72.5% of households afford their preferred lifestyle from day one, though the income never rises with inflation.
An inflation-linked annuity started lower (61.5% could meet their target immediately) but holds its value over time. A hybrid approach - drawdown until 75, then switching into an inflation-linked annuity - came out best overall, with around 64% able to meet their retirement income goals.
There's no single "right" strategy here - each option is really a different trade-off between certainty, flexibility, and protecting against inflation or living longer than expected.
The 4% rule's caution can mean under-spending in your early, more active retirement years to guard against a risk that may not materialise. Annuities remove the guesswork and guarantee an income for life, but a level annuity's flat payments buy noticeably less after 15-20 years of inflation, which is worth weighing carefully before buying one.
The hybrid approach's edge in this research comes from combining flexibility earlier on, when you're likely to want and can handle more spending, with a guaranteed income locked in later, when certainty matters more.
Whichever route appeals, it's worth modelling against your own numbers - and getting professional advice before buying any annuity, since that decision can't be reversed - rather than assuming one approach is automatically the safe one.
Plug-in solar panels became legal to buy and use in Great Britain this week, opening up a much cheaper and simpler way to generate your own electricity than a traditional rooftop installation.
Each kit produces up to 800W and connects straight into a normal socket - no professional installer required - and the government estimates they could save households up to £110 a year, while providing up to 20% of an average home's electricity use.
Major retailers including Amazon, Argos, Currys, B&Q, Screwfix, Wickes and British Gas have confirmed they'll stock them.
Before buying, it's worth checking whether you actually need permission to use one - renters need their landlord's sign-off, and depending on your property you may also need approval from a freeholder, your council, or listed building consent; the government's own guidance is clear that this is down to landlords, freeholders and councils to decide, not a given right.
It's also worth treating the £110 figure as a best-case estimate rather than a guarantee - it depends on decent sun exposure, where the panels can be positioned, and how much of your electricity use happens during daylight hours, so a north-facing flat with no balcony won't see anything close to that.
Germany has had similar devices for a while (around 500,000 installed last year), and the UK's safety specification is reportedly stricter than Germany's, which is reassuring if you're considering one - just treat it as a modest, low-effort trim on your bill rather than a fix for a bigger energy cost problem.
Worth knowing:
The scheme only covers Great Britain for now, and it's worth getting written confirmation of any permission needed from a landlord or freeholder before you buy, rather than assuming a plug-in device won't count as an "installation" for planning purposes.
Wondering whether plug-in solar could actually save you money? A Bippit coach can help you look at your household finances and work out whether the potential savings make sense for you.
Not a bad idea in itself - used well, it can be a genuinely useful research tool. Ask it to explain a company's business model, summarise recent news, or translate jargon you don't understand, and you're using it in exactly the way even the FCA has said is fine.
Where it gets riskier is if you start treating its output as advice rather than research - asking "should I buy this?" and taking the answer as if it came from someone with professional qualifications who is accountable.
The simplest test: would you be comfortable if the AI's answer turned out to be wrong?
If a chatbot invents a statistic, misreads a company's latest results, or is just working from outdated information, there's no protection. So keep using it to build understanding, but treat anything that affects an actual buy decision as something to double-check against a primary source - the company's own filings, a reputable platform, or a professional - rather than the chatbot's word alone.
A good rule: use AI to get faster and better-informed, not to skip the thinking altogether. And if you want a second pair of eyes on a specific decision, or just want to sense-check something a chatbot's told you, that's exactly what a Bippit coach is there for.
I've been using AI apps to help pick investments - what should I actually be checking before I act on anything it tells me?
How do I go about modelling each retirement income approach - drawdown, annuity or a mix?
I'm thinking about a plug-in solar panel - is it worth it for my home, and do I need permission first?
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