Nearly 8 in 10 investors use AI for research but don’t fully trust its results

Most end up asking a financial advisor to validate AI insights.

Singaporean high-net-worth investors are using artificial intelligence to help them with their investment decisions but almost always ask human financial advisors to recheck its insights, research by HSBC from Ipsos revealed.

76% of Singapore mass affluent and HNW investors use AI for finance and investment tasks, ahead of the 73% global average. Nearly seven in 10 investors use AI to research and analyse (69%), for strategy support (44%), and to stress-test their own ideas (34%).

Nearly eight in 10 (79%) bring those findings to a professional advisor for reassurance, whilst 71% bring them for strategic expertise.

Only 8% of Singapore investors say AI was the single most influential source in their last major investment decision, against 12% globally. And whilst 43% say AI has increased their appetite for taking calculated risks, that figure sits below the 49% global average, consistent with Singapore's positioning as a more measured market alongside the US (44%), UK (39%) and Taiwan (43%).

Generationally, Singaporean Gen X investors report AI use in finance at 72%, against a global equivalent of 65%. Amongst Baby Boomers, the gap is wider: 72% in Singapore versus 59% globally. The report said it shows that AI engagement in Singapore is not concentrated amongst younger investors but cuts across age groups in a way that distinguishes the country from most of the other nine markets surveyed.

Four in ten Singapore investors (40%) say their ideal approach is hybrid, with 57% preferring AI and advisers working together, above the global figure (50%).

That preference holds across generations: 45% of Singapore Gen Z investors favour the sequence for generating new investment ideas, ahead of their global peers at 38%.

“Our new data tells us is that Singapore's investors are using AI in their financial decision-making with discipline. They are doing more of their own analysis, arriving at conversations better prepared, and expecting more of the professional advisers who help them as a result. That is not a challenge to the adviser relationship model; it is setting a higher bar for what good advice looks like,” Ashmita Acharya, Head of International Wealth and Premier Banking, HSBC Singapore said.

Amongst high-net-worth investors (or those with $2m or more in investable assets), AI adoption reaches nine in ten (90%), compared with 82% globally. Singapore's wealthiest respondents attribute an average 40% of their investment returns over the past 12 months to AI influence, above the 31% average across all Singapore investors surveyed.

At the same time, two-thirds (65%) say AI makes them feel more in control. These are clients who are already measuring AI's contribution to their portfolio performance; what they are looking for from their bank is a relationship that matches their level of sophistication.

HSBC’s new survey included 9,993 mass affluent and high-net-worth investors across ten markets. The Singapore dataset comprised 609 respondents, surveyed between January and February 2026.