Life’s Big Decisions with AI Advice

Maryse Kathleen Ngangoue, Andrew Schotter and Bill Wang

No 12515, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: People increasingly rely on AI for advice on life’s Big Decisions, raising the question whether AI reinforces human advice and behavior or provides distinct recommendations. We study ChatGPT’s advice across socioeconomic profiles, examining recommendations and justifications. We compare AI advice with human advice and observed behavior from representative surveys, and find that AI is neither a substitute for human advice nor a reflection of observed behavior. Instead, it homogenizes advice where human advisors disagree but differentiates it where they agree. Its recommendations are more consistent with the behavior of low-income than high-income individuals, suggesting potentially different impacts across socioeconomic groups.

Keywords: LLM; generative AI; big decisions; transformative decisions; advice; SES (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D83 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain and nep-exp
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12515

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