How to Use AI For Estate Planning Safely
By Jereme Peabody
The Problem With Traditional Estate Planning
Like many others, my wife and I delayed our estate planning. We have family in multiple countries, we coudln't decide on a guardian for my daughter, it was just overwhelming. Then something happened to a family member and it hit a little too close to home. Having our estate in order became a top priority for my wife and I.
I went to AI to see what it would produce. It correctly identified that it was not a lawyer and that it will provide a general template that I could customize and give to a lawyer. What it did was help us start thinking about how to approach the problem before we even met with the lawyers.
To use AI safely, we only used AI as a way to jump start our preparation, not replace our lawyers or to write our documents. And it turned out this preparation was important because the process we followed with the lawyer, didn't initially give us what we wanted.
The Big Document Dump
The lawyers returned with our documents after a couple of weeks. And because they only asked us generic questions, they didn't provide anything about the guardianship of our daughter. As a software engineer, I couldn't imagine doing business this way. They produced a product without gathering any of the real requirements. It would be like me meeting with a customer and asking simple questions like, 'what type of website do they want', 'what name do they want to use', and just generating the site with their name on it. Then make THEM tell ME what they really wanted.
Legal Jargon
So now we had an issue, we don't speak legalese. We couldn't tell exactly what was in the documents. What any of them actually were. And to make things worse, they cap how many updates can be made. Without an understanding about the documents, we were at risk of paying more.
Anyway, so We had these documents, but how do we know if there's anything in there about our guardianship if we couldn't understand them?
Did you know that With today's AI tools, you can create a project and upload the documents into the AI model? Make sure there's nothing personal in there like SSN or account numbers. Once there, you can then start asking questions about them. This greatly simplified the process. It allowed us to use the same language the lawyers were using (within reason) to communicate what we wanted. We initially had AI help us craft the response, but they used too much legal jargon so I just wrote them myself.
We're still going through the process, but I wanted to share what we learned.
What AI Can (and Can’t) Do
What AI can do for you:
- AI can help you organize assets, debts, and beneficiaries
- Draft plain-language explanations of complex terms
- Generate checklists or timelines for estate planning tasks
- Help you understand what a trust is
- Simulate 'what if' scenarios
What AI Can't do for you:
- Replace legal advice
- Guarantee compliance with state laws
- Sign or notarize documents (there's a lot of them to sign)
- AI is a powerful assistant, but not your attorney.
Getting Started: Using AI To Organize Your Information
Step-by-step guidance:
- Create a list of all your assets and liabilities
- Use AI to help categorize them ('Group these assets into personal, financial, and business holdings')
- Ask AI to create a visual table or checklist of everything you'll need to discuss with a professional
Using AI To Help Understand Legal Documents And Concepts
Everyone's estate is different. What I can show you are prompts you can use against your legal documents to help you understand them.
- What is a revocable trust?
- Why would I want a revocable trust?
Question them, give them what-if scenarios:
- Explain the difference between a living trust and a will as if I were 15.
- List pros and cons of naming a family member vs. a professional executor.
- If both my wife and I die, who gets our estate? Where is that located in the documents?
Understanding the concepts and legal jargon improves decision-making and communication with the lawyer.
Finally, ask:
- What questions haven't I asked about these documents that I probably should be asking?
Using AI for Communication and Collaboration
Use AI to:
- Write summary letters for family members
- Create clear instructions for executors or trustees
- Draft messages that explain decisions (reduces family disputes later)
Example: 'Write a compassionate letter explaining why my oldest child will be executor, while reassuring my other children.'
Privacy and Security Considerations
Our lawyers did a good job not asking or including any of our private information. Since people can request copies of the will, it's a good idea not to include this information within the Will.
WARNINGS
- Do not paste private data like SSNs or full account numbers into public AI tools
- Do not upload documents that have private or sensitive information
- Do not upload documents with passwords
What I did like about our documents is that they were free of PII. Also, they're written in such a way that any changes wouldn't kick off another update of the Will.
Conclusion: Take The First Step
The hardest part of estate planning was getting started. AI made the process clearer, faster, and far less stressful than we were making it.