James Mabey, partner at law firm Winckworth Sherwood said AI tools could transform many aspects of estate planning but warned against reliance on it.
He said those advising on estate planning matters could use technology to cut out labour-intensive stages of initial draftings and document review.
However, Mabey added: "Ultimately, the capability of generative AI is limited to the quality of the data it is fed.
"Generative AI tools are designed to predict text based on input, but this can result in outputs which, whilst appearing plausible, are actually misleading or false.
"In this sense, AI programs cannot generally be relied upon to have accurate or up to date knowledge of relevant legislation, case law or tax regimes that are crucial to proper estate planning.
"Additionally, confidential personal information should never be inputted into open-source AI models such as ChatGPT. Such programs cannot guarantee data privacy so there is a risk that this data could be exposed."
Ultimately, Mabey said using artificial intelligence to produce documents could risk being too generalised.
"For example, AI programs are incapable of understanding how choosing specific executors might impact on someone’s family dynamic, or how a couple’s estates might pass if they were to die in a common accident," he added.
He continued: "As it stands, AI models are simply not capable of the emotionally sensitive analysis skills this area of law demands.
"Therefore, notwithstanding the opportunities offered by AI, a human touch remains irreplaceable in estate planning."
tara.o'connor@ft.com
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