By Nathan Isterling, Chief Information Officer, Otivo
"Free" is a fact about the price, not about the thing. Three quite different products currently reach Australians under that label, and one of them is genuine licensed personal advice that somebody else has already paid for. Another is general information dressed in conversational language. The third is a front door to a sales process. They cost the same, which is nothing, and they're worth wildly different amounts.
Quick answer
Free AI financial advice comes in three forms: general information from unlicensed general-purpose tools, licensed personal advice funded by an employer or super fund, and free entry points into a commercial process. Only the second is advice in the regulatory sense, carrying a best interests duty, a record and a complaints pathway.
Is AI financial advice actually free?
Some of it genuinely is, and some of it is free the way a test drive is free.
The distinction that matters isn't whether money changes hands at the point of use. It's whether anyone is accountable for what you're given. A free answer from an unlicensed tool carries no duty to you and no recourse. Free licensed advice, funded by a fund or an employer, carries exactly the same obligations as advice you'd pay several thousand dollars for, because those obligations attach to the licence rather than to the invoice.
That's counterintuitive enough that plenty of people get it backwards, assuming a fee signals rigour. It doesn't. It signals that a person's time was involved.
The three kinds of free
Once you can tell these apart, the label stops being confusing.
- Free because it's general information. Publicly available AI tools, plus genuinely good public resources like ASIC's Moneysmart, which marked fifteen years as the regulator's consumer education platform in March 2026. No licence needed, because no personal advice is being given. Useful for understanding, not for deciding.
- Free because someone else paid. Licensed digital advice funded by a super fund or an employer. This is personal advice under an Australian Financial Services Licence, subject to the best interests duty in section 961B of the Corporations Act, documented, and covered by internal complaints and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. The member pays nothing and gets all of it.
- Free at the front. A no-cost calculator, review or consultation that opens into a commercial relationship. There's nothing wrong with the model, and commissions on most financial products have been banned in Australia since the Future of Financial Advice reforms, with limited exceptions including life insurance. It's simply worth knowing which side of the door you're standing on.
A 29-year-old using a chatbot, a 29-year-old using her fund's digital advice tool, and a 29-year-old filling in a free retirement review form are all getting something free. Only one of them is receiving advice.
What can you actually get for free that's genuinely good?
More than people expect, provided you match the tool to the job.
For learning, general-purpose AI is strong, and ASIC's Moneysmart guidance from March 2026 says so plainly: summarising complex material, answering general questions, defining terms and suggesting what to research next. Moneysmart itself offers calculators, budget tools and plain-English explanations at no cost, and it's built for the Australian context, which most general-purpose material isn't.
For deciding, free licensed advice is the one that carries weight. Where a super fund or employer funds a digital advice service, the member gets personal advice computed from their own balance, income and goals, with a record at the end of it. Many Australians have access to something like this without realising, because it arrived as a member benefit rather than as a product.
The gap in the middle is the one people fall into: using something from the first category to make a decision that needed something from the second.
What does free rarely include?
Three things, and they're the same three regardless of which kind of free you're looking at.
Verified data about you is the first. A free general-purpose tool works from what you typed and can't check any of it. Continuity is the second: an answer that doesn't remember your position next month makes you start again each time. Accountability is the third, and it's the one that only matters once. ASIC's Moneysmart put the underlying point directly when it published its AI guidance, noting that an AI answer can feel tailored to you even though the tool isn't bound by the rules that apply to licensed advice.
There's a fourth thing worth naming: free general-purpose tools have no reason to tell you not to act. A service built to answer the question asked will answer it. Under ASIC's Regulatory Guide 255, a licensed digital advice provider is expected to build the tool so it declines where the scope is too narrow to serve the client properly, which is a very different design brief.
How can you tell which kind of free you're looking at?
Two checks, both quick.
Look for a licence number, and check it against ASIC's public registers rather than taking it at face value. And ask what happens next: whether the free thing ends with an answer, a record, or a phone call.
It's worth being deliberate about this, because trust in these tools is running ahead of what they were designed for. ASIC's research, published alongside its March 2026 guidance, found nearly one in five Gen Z Australians already using AI platforms for financial information, almost two thirds trusting them for money advice, and one in six trusting them completely.
Frequently asked questions
Is an AI financial advisor the same as an AI financial adviser?
Same thing, two spellings. "Adviser" is the Australian form, used in the Corporations Act and on ASIC's Financial Adviser Register; "advisor" is American and appears widely in search. Either way, section 923C of the Corporations Act reserves "financial adviser" and "financial planner" for individuals registered as relevant providers, and the restriction extends to terms of like import, so it covers both spellings. Software can't lawfully be called either.
Can I get free financial advice in Australia without a catch?
Yes, in two forms. Public resources like ASIC's Moneysmart are free and carry no commercial interest in what you do next. Licensed digital advice funded by a super fund or employer is free to the member and is genuine personal advice. The category worth identifying is the third one, where free is an entry point rather than the product, which is legitimate but different.
Is free AI financial advice safe to act on?
That depends on whether a licensee stands behind it, not on whether it cost anything. Free licensed advice carries a best interests duty, a documented record and access to AFCA. A free answer from an unlicensed general-purpose tool carries none of those, which is why ASIC's framing is that AI output is worth checking against trusted sources before acting on it.
Where does Otivo fit?
Otivo provides personal advice under AFSL and Australian Credit Licence No. 485665, and where an employer or partner organisation funds access, it sits in the second category above: licensed advice, computed from the member's own balances, income and goals, documented, and covered by internal complaints and AFCA. Anyone can also sign up directly. Otivo's free plan includes personal advice on the investment options inside your super and limited access to Ask Otivo, while advice on debt, personal insurance and retirement is part of the paid Digital plan. If you'd like to see what licensed advice produces on your own numbers, the retirement planning module and the super investment options module both start there. For circumstances more complex than a model is built for, a licensed financial adviser is the right next step.
Sources
- ASIC Moneysmart, AI and money decisions, 23 March 2026. moneysmart.gov.au/online-safety/ai-and-money-decisions
- ASIC, Moneysmart publishes tips on using AI for financial issues, 23 March 2026. asic.gov.au
- ASIC, Regulatory Guide 255: Providing digital financial product advice to retail clients, issued August 2016, updated March 2022.
- Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), s923C and s961B.
Disclaimer
The information in this communication is current as at September 2026 and has been prepared by Otivo Pty Ltd ABN 47 602 457 732, AFSL and Australian Credit Licence No. 485665. This content is general information only and has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not personal financial or taxation advice and should not be relied on as such. Before acting on any information, you should consider its appropriateness having regard to your personal circumstances. This material must not be reproduced in whole or in part, or posted on any social media platform, without the prior written consent of Otivo Pty Ltd.