Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing at a dizzying pace and promises to revolutionize everything, but in Colombia it hits a wall to improve money management in households: low financial education. The latest data from the Banco de la República shows that only 16.4% of Colombians correctly answer the three questions that the world has used since 2004 to measure if someone understands finance: if they know how compound interest grows, if they understand that inflation reduces purchasing power, and if they know that putting all the money in a single stock is riskier than spreading it across several. “AI can be very useful to extend the reach of financial education, […] but we see risks for those with low financial, digital, and AI literacy. Today all three are necessary at the same time,” says Andrea Grifoni, one of the authors of the most recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on the subject, in an interview with EL PAÍS.
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Her warning matters in a country with inequalities. 35.6% of Colombians in stratum 5 correctly answer the three financial knowledge questions, compared to a range between 14.4% and 16.4% in strata 1 to 4. Although in theory AI can level the playing field, there are specific risks pointed out by experts like Miles Larbey, head of the Financial Consumer Protection Unit at the OECD: “Low levels of digital and financial literacy. The risk that AI carries biases in its results. And a boundary that in almost no country is well defined yet: where general information ends and personalized financial advice begins.” Regulations are advancing at a slow pace compared to AI, while in some cities in Colombia some already ask ChatGPT what to do with their money.
When Ana María García (Cali, 32 years old) went to live alone, for example, she asked OpenAI’s chat to make her a budget. “I told it: I have this monthly. Make me a list of food recipes I can buy and the cost,” she says. Over time, the tool also became a domestic arbitrator. “I ask it how to split the household expenses with my boyfriend. Also if a purchase can wait while I save a little more,” she details. And although the conversation is mostly focused on work, some studies show adoption beyond the work front. The credit bureau Experian (DataCrédito) found that 59% of Colombians used some AI service in the last year, although it mixes, in the same bucket, a chat that makes a budget with an algorithm that approves a loan.
When asked more specifically, almost half trust that AI helps them organize and better understand their personal finances, as well as receive recommendations for financial products and services. Psychologist María Paula Gastelbondo (Líbano, Tolima, 28 years old) also falls on that side of the statistics. “I asked Claude to budget my wedding. Also to compare recipes before deciding what to cook, and it even helps me choose which supermarket is cheaper,” she says. No one has yet measured, on a national scale, how many Colombians do the same, and the Financial Superintendency confirmed to EL PAÍS that it has no studies on the matter.
A broader picture is held, indirectly, by Microsoft, which tracks the pulse of generative AI with Windows, Bing, or Copilot. Its estimate says that 1 in 4 Colombians of working age used some tool of this type, for whatever purpose, during the first quarter of 2026. The data does not distinguish if it was for programming, doing a task, or making a budget; it only measures that AI entered someone’s life, which forces looking for other data. The first thing to consider is that some evidence points out that tools like AI do not install a habit, but enhance it. This was shown by a , which found in 2022 that a robo-advice—automated advice, without conversation—improved decisions, but the improvement did not survive once the tool was withdrawn.
Enhancing a habit also means having it, and a good part of the country has a problem with business structure. In Colombia, labor informality exceeds 54%, and reaches 83% in rural areas, according to DANE. There, household money and business money are usually the same. This is shown by ANIF: 44.7% of subsistence businesses use a single bank account for personal and business expenses. The proportion decreases as the business grows: in microenterprises it is 37.7%, in small businesses 27%, and in medium-sized businesses 8.5%.
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SMEs, which represent 99% of the business fabric and generate 40% of GDP, scored 65.3 out of 100 in the financial capabilities index that ANIF calculated this year. It is an intermediate level, but the full diagnosis is that, although they know the concepts, they do not turn them into a long-term planning habit. The problem is structural: seven out of ten SMEs in the country are microenterprises, and their willingness to plan (55.1 out of 100) is almost identical to that of subsistence businesses (54.2), the most precarious segment. It shows in basic things like keeping accounts, where 31% of microenterprises say they keep them in their head or on a piece of paper.
There are even more questions that precede the use of AI, such as who has access to it. According to the , internet reached only 56.9% of rural households — the first time it surpasses half — compared to 73.9% of the national average. The gap, which was once 50 points, now hovers around 20. It is a real improvement, but it means that four out of ten rural Colombian households cannot open ChatGPT.
Behind each of those decisions — budgeting a wedding, splitting rent, calculating how the month holds up — there is something that also matters to those who manage the country’s monetary policy: how much Colombians understand and trust the economic signals they receive. Although Mauricio Villamizar, co-director of the Banco de la República, is amazed at the speed at which AI-driven fraud advances, he explains to EL PAÍS why financial education matters to a central bank in general: “When people understand and are convinced of what we do, they start incorporating our goals into their daily lives. In lease contracts, in financial decisions, in how they set prices. And if everyone believes, the cost to lower inflation is less.”
The phrase is not abstract. The Colombian economy has been very driven by household spending, while inflation — which ended 2025 stuck at 5% — is rising, surpassing 6%, with upward forecasts for the end of the year. In a country where cash still dominates 70% of transactions, the OECD is sharp in warning that the race towards increasingly digital financial services risks creating new models of exclusion built on top of existing ones. To the minority that already makes financial decisions with the help of AI, Grifoni gives a recommendation: “Do not follow uncritically what it tells you to do.”
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