Your customers are starting to trust AI more than your experts

For years I watched smart people argue over why Americans won’t plan their estates. Too expensive. Too complicated. No one wants to think about death. While there’s some truth to each of these points, our data shows a lot of those barriers are dropping at a rapid rate. Our 2026 Estate Planning Report was based on data from a national survey conducted by Trust & Will between January and February this year, with 5,000 U.S. adults. These are the top reasons that Americans cite for not having an estate plan: lack of information on where to start (17%), procrastination (23%), and the belief that they do not have enough assets to warrant creating an estate plan (27%). Again, these are real challenges. According to our data, all three issues decreased significantly over the past year. Specifically, procrastination fell seven percentage points, lack of information regarding where to begin decreased 10 percentage points, and concerns about cost fell by nine points. So, traditional friction has been reduced. However, despite the reduction in barriers, 56% of Americans still have no estate planning documents, with very little change since last year. This gap is what keeps me up at night and makes another finding from the same study worth paying attention to. THE AI TREND NO ONE SAW COMING THIS QUICKLY The number of Americans who trust artificial intelligence more than a human attorney for guidance on estate planning increased 10% in just one year, from 20% to 30%. Conversely, skepticism decreased by the same margin. This represents a substantial shift in consumer sentiment in a category that has resisted change for decades. This trend also reflects a change in thinking among those who hesitate to use AI for estate planning. In 2025, most of these concerns were philosophical: Should a machine be making decisions related to my family’s future? By 2026, these philosophical questions were replaced with more practical ones: Will it get this right? Is my data secur