Imagine receiving a letter saying your benefits are being stopped, a legal letter warning of court action over a debt or discovering that your landlord may be breaking the law. You need to understand the implications of the letter, what your rights are, what you can do and how quickly you need to act. Where would you turn?
New national polling commissioned by AdviceUK in July 2026 reveals that 35% of UK adults have already used an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini to get advice or information about a personal problem, including money, benefits, housing or legal issues. Another 35% haven’t used it for this purpose but would consider doing so. That’s seven in ten adults who have either used AI for advice or are open to it. AI is already becoming a part of how we look for help.
It’s not difficult to understand why. AI is available around the clock, it responds almost instantly, and it can help people make sense of unfamiliar terms or complicated information. For someone worried about a debt, a legal matter or a benefits decision, that can be a useful starting point.
But there is a difference between getting an answer and getting advice you need and can rely on. Using AI is not the same as trusting it.
The public appear to be aware of this. Our nationally representative survey of 3,014 UK adults reveals a public that is open to AI but far from uncritical. 74% would worry about receiving incorrect or misleading advice. 81% agree that AI cannot replace a human adviser when people have complex or sensitive problems.
Accuracy is a particular concern. Among respondents who had used AI for personal advice or information, 16% described it as completely accurate and 57% as mostly accurate. A quarter described it as only a little accurate or not accurate at all.
The problem is if you don’t know where the error lies then “mostly accurate” tells you little about whether the missing detail matters. An answer can contain useful information but still be unsafe to rely on.
That is why good advice involves more than supplying an answer.
Our member organisations increasingly tell us that problems are becoming more complex and multifaceted; clients are rarely arriving with one neatly defined problem. Clients struggling with rent arrears may also have debts, ill health and not getting benefits they need, and are entitled to.
When the public are asked how they would prefer to obtain advice at different stages of a problem, 20% choose a face-to-face appointment when first becoming aware of a problem. But this rises to 50% when the issue becomes more serious and starts to affect their life. Telephone support – speaking to someone – remains important too.
Arguably, that preference for human contact when things become serious exists across the public services. It is a recognition that some problems require professional expertise and human support.
A skilled adviser in the advice sector listens, ask questions, tries to understand a person’s wider circumstances and helps them to work out what to do next. That is why advisers matter. They can spot problems that someone may may not have mentioned in the first place. And sometimes the most important information emerges only after someone feels comfortable enough to explain what is really happening.
Yet for too many people, getting support from someone who is experienced is becoming harder and harder to reach. Our 2026 national poll found that almost a third of people who sought free, independent advice were unable to get help, were still waiting or had waited more than a month for one or more of their problems.
A separate annual survey of AdviceUK members this year (in which 188 organisations responded), shows that high demand is coming face to face with a stretched and underfunded advice workforce. 89% of advice organisations said demand had increased since 2024; 51% of organisations said they had turned clients away because they lacked capacity, and 48% had reduced services.
That is the reality of people being able to get trusted and reliable advice in this country. The public are increasingly being left with AI as their only realistic option because the advice sector is not available, when they need it the most.
It is not one versus the other. We cannot simply tell people to stop using AI when they may be struggling to find timely advice elsewhere.
By working closely with the advice sector and using its trusted information sources, AI can be part of the solution to growing demand for advice. Advice organisations are already exploring and using AI in their work, including through innovations involving AdviceUK and technology partners such as Wyser Assist. AI is reducing the time their advisers spend on routine tasks, allowing them to free up capacity to spend more time with clients, including people with complicated or overlapping problems.
These developments deserve serious attention, particularly where they can help smaller organisations make better use of limited resources. Our membership survey found that 35% of organisations which responded to our annual membership survey use AI in their advice service, and a further 39% are considering using AI in the future. Their main barrier to doing so is the lack of funding.
Government and technology companies should therefore develop this work with the advice sector. Small, specialist and community-based advice organisations should be involved alongside larger advice providers. AI tools need to be tested against a range of problems people bring, with clear thresholds and referrals to specialist support when it’s needed.
Ensuring a human adviser remains involved is particularly important. With the help of trusted advisers from the advice sector, AI can help people find reliable information earlier, understand what documents they need or identify where to seek specialist support.
The scale of the need for advice is enormous. According to the Money and Pensions Service, an estimated 7.3 million adults in the UK needed debt advice in 2024, with a further 11.7 million at risk of needing it. At a time when so many people are struggling with debt, we need to make it easier to access reliable advice, not leave people to navigate complicated problems alone.
The question is no longer whether people will turn to AI for advice. They already are.
The question now is whether we can make AI reliable enough to help people, useful enough to support advisers, and part of a properly funded advice system that ensures no one is left to face their most difficult problems alone.
Liz Bayram, Chief Executive of AdviceUK, the UK’s largest network of free and independent advice services.
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