Core · 3-min read

Hello {{first_name|there}},

Happy Thanksgiving weekend. 🍂

A stat stopped me this week. Among Canadians aged 18 to 29, 26% have used AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for money or mortgage advice. Only 17% have used a licensed broker or adviser. (REMIC / Abacus Data survey, spring 2026.)

AI is already our generation's first financial adviser. So let's talk about what it's great at, where it's dangerous, and how to use it without getting burned.

Finance is changing fast. Banks use AI to catch fraud, answer questions and process paperwork. Canada is also building "consumer-driven banking" (open banking), which will let you securely share your own financial data with apps you choose. No launch date has been confirmed yet, but more tools are coming that read your spending, spot fees and nudge you to save.

That's the good part: the boring, useful stuff is getting automated. Budget categories, contribution-room math, "what if I saved $50 more a week?" Free, instant, at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday.

Here's what hasn't changed:

Use AI like a tutor, not a guru. Let it explain, calculate and quiz you. Keep the decisions, and the double-checking, for yourself.

1. The explainer
"I'm Canadian and new to investing. Compare the TFSA, FHSA and RRSP in a simple table: who each one suits, its tax break, and what happens when I withdraw. Then quiz me with 3 questions, one at a time."

2. The habit math
"If I invest $[50] a week for [25] years, what could it grow to at 3%, 5% and 7%? Show a table of what I put in versus what came from growth, and include the formula."
(This is an illustration, not a forecast. Real returns go up and down.)

3. The skeptic
"Be my skeptical, money-smart friend. Here's an investment pitch I saw: [paste it, with no personal info]. Give me 5 questions to ask before I trust it, flag any red flags, and tell me how to check if the seller is registered in Canada."

Then check one answer against a real source, like CRA My Account or aretheyregistered.ca. That habit is the whole skill.

I've been working on something bigger than a Sunday email. The Canadian Investor's Field Guide is finished: 64 pages on how investing works in Canada, from your first dollar to a portfolio that lasts. Accounts, ETFs, fees, taxes, a first home, crypto and how to spot a scam, in the same plain language as this email.

It's free, and as a subscriber you get all of it today.

New to this? Start with Part II, on the TFSA, FHSA and RRSP. If you find a mistake, hit reply and I'll correct it publicly. Same rules as always: it teaches, it doesn't advise, and there are no picks.

Know someone who's been asking a chatbot about their money? Forward this email to them.

AI completely changed how I invest. For years I kept my finances to myself. Money felt too personal to hand to a stranger, even a registered adviser I hadn't learned to trust yet. So I figured it out alone, slowly.

About two years ago, I started asking the free version of ChatGPT. Something clicked. Once you give it your context (your goals, your timeline, what you already own), it stops answering in general and starts answering for you. I asked it where I was doubling up on the same industry or country, and used the answers to make my recurring investments more balanced and built to last. For the first time, I felt like I had a seat at a table I used to think wasn't built for people like me.

It also taught me a lesson the hard way. I asked how selling bitcoin I held outside my TFSA would affect my tax return, and I planned around its answer. I ended up owing the government money I could have avoided with better planning. That one's on me: I didn't check.

I'm glad it happened early, while the stakes were small, because it showed me the rules. In Canada, selling crypto outside a registered account counts as a sale for tax purposes. So does swapping one coin for another, or spending it on something. Half of any capital gain gets added to your income for that year. Inside a TFSA, investment gains generally aren't taxed at all. All of it is on the CRA's website, a five-minute read I now never skip.

The bigger lesson isn't really about AI. It's about speed. AI gives you an answer in three seconds, and that makes it tempting to act in three seconds too. But wealth isn't built by the fastest decision. It's built by the boring ones you repeat for years.

The world's biggest investor is already doing this. Norway's sovereign wealth fund manages more than 21 trillion kroner (about $2 trillion US). It runs an AI tool over its own managers' trading records to flag emotional habits, like holding on to losing stocks too long or selling winners too soon. The aim is to help them stop following the crowd. AI was one of the reasons the fund cut its trading costs by 30% between 2023 and 2025, a saving of 4.8 billion kroner. That's the future I'm excited about. AI won't tell anyone what the market does next. What it can do is keep us patient, disciplined and honest with the math. If that works for a fund that size, it can work for a paycheque in Vancouver.

So these are my rules now:

Here's what I believe now, and didn't seven years ago: a regular paycheque, a few patient habits and the right tools can build something far bigger than most of us were ever told was possible. Not overnight. One deposit, one checked answer, one Sunday at a time.

Dream big. Build slowly. That's the whole plan.

Reply with A, B or C: Have you ever asked AI about your money?
A) Yes, and it helped · B) Yes, and it got something wrong · C) Not yet

Plant today. Grow for decades.
Lucas

Educational content only, not personalized financial advice. Example figures are illustrations, not forecasts; real returns go up and down. Don't share personal or account information with AI tools. Planted North is not affiliated with any AI company. No stock or coin picks, ever: plantednorth.ca/standards

Sources: REMIC / Abacus Data survey of 1,910 Canadians, May 28 to June 2, 2026 (GlobeNewswire, July 20, 2026) · Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre 2025 data, via Advisor.ca and money.ca · CTV News (Ontario deepfake case) · Department of Finance Canada, Consumer-Driven Banking Act · Canadian Securities Administrators, aretheyregistered.ca · Canada Revenue Agency, "Reporting your capital gains as a crypto-asset user" · Norges Bank, Nicolai Tangen's hearing at the Storting, May 5, 2026 · Top1000funds, "How NBIM spots portfolio managers' biases using AI"