How to Use AI With Your Portfolio

If you’re inclined to create a spreadsheet — and I know that some of you are and some of you aren’t — you can put that spreadsheet directly into an AI program and ask it to analyze what you own. What happens next might surprise you.

Setting Up Your Spreadsheet

Your spreadsheet doesn’t need to be complicated. At minimum, include these columns:

• Ticker — the symbol for each holding
• Shares — how many you own
• Cost per share — your purchase price, if you have it
• Account type — Brokerage, Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, or any other category that applies to you

That’s it. Four columns. If you want to go further, you can add current price, total value, and gain or loss — but the four basics will get you started.

What to Ask

Once you’ve pasted your spreadsheet into an AI program, ask it two specific questions:

1. Analyze my asset allocation — how is my money divided between growth, income, and cash?
2. Analyze my asset location — do I have the right investments in the right types of accounts?

What Will Likely Happen

The AI will almost certainly respond with textbook answers based on traditional portfolio theory. It may tell you that you have too much in one sector, not enough international exposure, or that your bond allocation seems light. It may suggest moving certain holdings from one account type to another.

Here is the important part: you do not have to follow any of it.

The AI doesn’t know your age, your income sources, your risk tolerance, your family situation, or your investment philosophy. It is working from general principles. Think of it as a starting point for a conversation, not a prescription.

What Happened to Mine

When I put my own portfolio into an AI program, it flagged several things that looked unusual by conventional standards — some sector concentration.

By textbook measures, these looked like problems. But each one had a specific reason behind it that the AI couldn’t know from the spreadsheet alone.

When I explained my reasoning, the AI engaged with it thoughtfully — pushing back where appropriate, affirming where the logic held, and asking questions that helped me think more clearly about positions I’d been holding on autopilot.

That back-and-forth was genuinely useful. Not because the AI told me what to do, but because explaining my reasoning to something that asked good questions forced me to be honest about which positions I owned with conviction and which ones I was simply carrying out of inertia.

Where It Actually Helped Most

The more valuable conversation happened around asset location — meaning which investments belonged in which types of accounts.

The general principle is straightforward: your highest-growth assets belong in your Roth IRA, where every dollar of appreciation is permanently tax-free. Income-generating holdings — dividend funds, REITs, bond funds — are better suited to traditional IRAs, where the tax deferral softens the impact of regular distributions.

When I asked the AI to evaluate my asset location specifically, it identified a holding in my Roth that didn’t belong there — an income-oriented fund that was better suited to a traditional IRA. I made the change, replacing it with a broad market growth fund. It was a simple swap, but one I probably wouldn’t have made without the nudge.

The Right Way to Think About It

AI is not a financial advisor. It doesn’t know your full picture. But it can act as a knowledgeable second set of eyes — one that will flag things worth thinking about, ask questions you hadn’t considered, and point out where you’ve deviated from conventional wisdom, intentionally or accidentally.

The key word is intentionally. If the AI flags something in your portfolio and your response is “I know, and here’s why I own it that way” — that’s a healthy outcome. You’ve confirmed your thinking. If your response is “huh, I’m not sure why I own it that way” — that’s valuable too.

The goal isn’t to have a portfolio that satisfies an algorithm. The goal is to have a portfolio you understand, that fits your life, and that you can hold through whatever the market delivers.

AI can help you get there. But the judgment still has to be yours.