Using AI to Master Your Finances (w/ Allie K. Miller)
49m 5s
The podcast features a deep dive into how AI is reshaping personal and professional life, with expert Ally Miller offering actionable, forward-looking advice for 2026. Central to the discussion is the shift from task-based to goal-driven AI use—where users define big outcomes like a promotion or financial independence, and AI then autonomously creates action plans, sub-tasks, and even loops to refine results. Miller emphasizes that personal finance, especially through AI-powered "money dates," can become more engaging, less intimidating, and more effective by using redacted data, peer accountability, and creative prompts to overcome fear and boredom. She highlights that AI is not replacing human judgment but amplifying it, with humans maintaining critical oversight to evaluate outcomes. Real-world use cases include automating financial reviews, researching investment strategies, and managing subscriptions. The conversation also addresses gender disparities in AI adoption, noting that women are more likely to face automation but less likely to use AI tools—underscoring the need for inclusive, accessible learning. Ultimately, the key message is that AI is a tool of empowerment, not a threat, and that anyone can build wealth and agency by starting small, setting clear goals, and consistently engaging with AI systems in a personalized, reflective way. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to explore free resources, such as Miller’s AI Fast Track course and newsletter, to master AI use in their personal and financial lives.
Hello, it's Elizabeth Day from How To Fail Here. My next guest is the pioneering British fashion designer renowned for his signature classic with a twist aesthetic. Sir Paul Smith. They say, "Oh, Paul's job, yes, head of happiness." - Oh. - That's my job. - What a great job. - I do close as well. Yeah. Listen to How To Fail, whatever you get your podcasts. Some evil thing happened here. Three people died in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. It's not a coincidence. One after the other, in the same house. Is this bad luck or something more sinister? The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. A long simmering, what took you so fucking long, to get here. From Sony music entertainment, this is what happened to the Harrison's. I'm Amy Dempsey-Raven. What happened to the Harrison's is available now on the binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to the binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, add free. And if you get enough that are 100 plus a year, you're saving thousands. These are real personal finance use cases that people are using AI for. This is Financial Tea. Welcome back to Financial Tea. This is a podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama, money scandals, and of course, financial pop culture. And today we have a guest that I have been dying to have on the show. And I've been getting so many requests about, she used to work at Amazon and IBM. And now is the number one most followed voice in AI business. Ally Miller is here. She's been on time 100 most influential in AI. And best of all, has a ton of free AI courses that I will link in the description. If you want to level up your game there, we obviously all need to learn how to use AI. We need to adapt. So this is going to be so helpful. Ally, welcome to the Financial Tea podcast. Thank you. I feel like I'm just talking like a low ASMR voice. But thank you for having me. But first, let's get into the MDJ market report. Our first story is about Apple Martin and the great wealth transfer. Yes, when it's daughter, that's who we're going to be talking about first today. I mean, this girl really hit the genetic lottery. And her brother Moses too. I just saw he's in a Burberry ad campaign. The kid is gorgeous. But not only that, they have the richest, hottest parents. Like the mother obviously gets paid $10 million in movie runs Goop, which is worth $433 million. The dad is worth like $200 million. He sold over $100 million with cold play. Like that almost makes up for them being named Apple and Moses. Those are crazy names. And you know, let's be real like they are definitely trying to work. I mean, I feel like they like model and stuff like that. But I don't really see them ever making as much money as their parents. And but they're going to live really good lives because they're going to inherit a lot of money. And what's crazy is that is not just for NEPO babies. Like we are currently living through the largest wealth transfer in human history. So it's not just these like rich kids, it is, you know, $124 trillion over the next two decades are going to be passed down to younger generations. And I know if you're not on the Apple Martin branch of the economy, this feels really shitty. And I get it. I think that it highlights this rise of a K-shaped economy where like the middle class sort of is seizing to exist. And you're either like super rich or you're in that bottom branch of the K. And you have regular wages and your hard work and you're trying to keep things going. And you can't figure out really how to get ahead. And so it is sort of this new version of the American dream because it used to be that you could have a good job. And that was what you needed to build security. But now a lot of that financial freedom is just being driven by yeah, like what your parents or family leaves you. So I don't know. I just feel like I wanted to talk about this story because we all hear about the great wealth transfers so much. And I was looking at it from the perspective of like if you are someone who just feels like you're on that hedonic treadmill of like trying to build wealth. You feel like you're going crazy. You see your friends. Maybe they like own department or they're on a crazy Euro trip this summer. And you're like how do they afford that? Like how is anyone affording anything? No, that like it's likely not their money. It's likely money that they're getting from their family. And I think that it's valuable to have a reality check about how the system works today. And also like that's why I wrote future rich person because despite the fact that there are all these hardships happening, there still are a lot of ways to build wealth and get ahead in today's world. I've got all the strategies maybe. Okay, our next story is about Duleepa and Kalim Turner's Italian honeymoon. Everyone is talking about it. It's all over the internet. It looked amazing. But the other thing I've been seeing all over my feed that's really come across my desk a lot is Jacob Allordi and Kendall Jenner's whirlwind romance. They are everywhere you guys. They have been trotting across the globe. They've been in Tokyo. They've been Hawaii. They've been in Santa Barbara. They were just in Australia. And they are just galavanting around the world doing whatever the fuck they want. Because guess what? They control their time. Like in 2026, this is honestly the biggest flex. I saw a picture of Jacob and Kendall at the airport and he had this like huge botega bag and she had this huge row bag. And I feel like old me would have been jealous of their designer goods. The same way like, you know, I would have seen Duleepa's Chanel sunglasses. But now like I just don't really feel like designer labels are that cool anymore. Like they're not status symbols as much just because anyone can buy a dupe. So what I find myself actually really being jealous of and I wonder if you relate to this is just their calendars. Like I feel like now the highest form of luxury isn't stuff. It's just freedom. Like the new American dream isn't a bigger house. It's not more cars. It's not a certain amount of kids. It's just owning your own time. And it's interesting because I was researching this. And I found so much data that backed it up. Like the average American gets just 11 days of paid vacation a year. And nearly half of workers don't even use all of it. Because they're afraid of looking replaceable. And honestly, people are over it. In March, American satisfaction with their pay and opportunities for advancement fell to its lowest level in more than a decade. So more and more people just feel like the traditional 9 to 5 is a complete dead end. So they're looking for another way. Nearly 40% of Americans, this may be my jaw drop. Now do some sort of freelance or contract or independent work. And I just feel like everyone sort of wants passive income. And to be in control of their own businesses. Because we want what Dua and Calum and Kendall and Jacob have. Which is like the ability to disappear for three weeks and not ask anyone permission. I was thinking about this. And it's like, obviously, we all want that. Like we want to live that Tulipa Italian life. But here's the thing. Nobody wakes up with time freedom. Like even Tulipa and Kendall and Jacob and Calm, they had to build it. Waking up every day and trying to work towards that. So just remember that like these small steps of investing. So that you're getting dividends. You're have a passive income or you're starting that side hustle. Or you're negotiating for that raise all of those count. And you can build towards this one piece of ownership at a time. But it's not going to happen overnight. And I will say that yeah, I really think in 2026 that the real leverage and what we're all searching for. It's owning things that make money even when we're not working. Like having investments, having a business, having intellectual property, having multiple income streams. Because the goal isn't to never work again. The goal is to like have enough leverage that you get to decide when, where and how you work. Like I guarantee you do is taking zooms while she's like globetrotting. And Kendall's probably like doing whatever the hell she does for a tequila line. And Jacob's practicing lines for his next movie. But you know, they can do it wherever they want. And remember, you can buy the fake botega. But you cannot buy a random Tuesday afternoon with your hot new boyfriend in Japan. So I think that is the luxury that everyone is actually chasing. And I just think that we need to stop trying to copy these people's outfits and start building enough ownership in our own lives that one day we can disappear with Jacob's loyalty on a random Tuesday, two in Japan, which is really all that I want to do. And our last story, we are about to start the interview. But I really wanted to include this as a finale of our market report. Because there has been a fake AI job apocalypse. I have good news, you guys. Humans are still very necessary. I got all this new data this week that shows tech hiring is actually up this year. Hardware engineering jobs are up more than 50% and overall tech job posting has increased nearly 14%. So I will just say it turns out that replacing humans is way harder than they thought. And this doesn't mean that the job market is easy by any means like applicants per job have search. Recent grads are facing some of the toughest competition. But I will just say that this whole idea that the robots are going to take all the jobs. It seems like it's probably wrong. And I just want to flag that. And what seems to be happening more is that AI is creating jobs and definitely changing jobs and making some skills more valuable and others less valuable. And what we're seeing is that the people winning right now aren't the ones hiding from AI or really worshiping it. It's just the ones who are learning how to use it and aren't scared of it. And that is why today's episode exists. It's not because I think that a robot is coming for your job tomorrow morning. but it's really because the person
who knows how to use AI might. So get ready for the AI master class that's going to change everything with Ali Kate Miller. And by the way, if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. And also if you're enjoying the financial tee, be sure to leave us a review. It helps to show so much. And yeah, if you're listening on YouTube, make sure that you subscribe. Stay rich. (upbeat music) I just want to say like my goal of this interview, this is the first time we've like had an AI expert on here, you're obviously the number one. And so the goal is for people to get to know you obviously 'cause you're amazing and you're doing such great work. But it's also to get really actionable advice on how to use AI to make more money, to manage their money and also to make their lives simpler. And I feel like you're really good at all of that. So I'm excited that you're here and I have a lot of questions and I feel like I am patient zero too 'cause like I need all the help as well. I'm excited to also help you. Can we just talk a little bit about who you are? What it is that you do? You have this really interesting career path. Like how did you get into this? So I started in AI almost 20 years ago and have been working in it every single day for the last decade. I worked at IBM Watson. I worked at AWS for four years. And when I was at AWS, I was a global head of AI for startups and venture capital. And over the next two years, worked with all the top AI startups, left almost exactly four years ago to start my own company and then Chatchuby T came out and I literally got on a Zoom call with my co-founder. We lit our business plan on fire and I pivoted into advising in the next 48 hours because I had so many of my old clients reaching out. And so now I advise Fortune 500 companies across pharmaceuticals and airlines and telco and large insurance companies and banks. And then I add new help us all on social media. That is just a fun thing that I do at two AM. Yeah, that is such an important part of all this that there is a widening gap between the people who are working at the AI labs or engineers or people who live in Silicon Valley and the rest of us. And I see the gap widening. It gives me acid reflux every day. So every single video that I'm posting, I'm like, ooh, we're one step closer to closing it. I love that. I feel the same way with finance. I feel like there's a lot of similarity in what we do. So you mentioned that you've been working in this for 20 years. How did you learn AI? And how do you continue to learn AI? Because I feel like it's changing every five minutes. And for someone listening who hasn't even taken the first step, that I think that makes it feel intimidating. So 20 years ago, it was kind of easy to stay, like quote unquote, up to date on AI because it wasn't this crazy fire hose of news. And so I started doing machine learning research in college. And I know that sounds technical or scary. But really, I was studying like the math of human language. And I was trying to figure out if there was a way to code, to figure out if someone's email was flirty or not. And like, that was crazy natural language understanding. Oh my god. But like at its core, I was a curious college student who was just like, I wonder if this is provable. And I wonder if he likes me. Yeah, and then the report went completely viral on campus. Wow. So that was the beginning. Now, if I'm telling people to start, it's kind of similar advice, which is like, pick a space that you care about. And maybe that's flirting. Or maybe that's just like your personal finances. I would heavily suggest using an agent platform like codex or cloud code or cloud co-work and not chatGPT or cloud chat. Because we're in a completely different world of what these systems can actually do, what capabilities they have. I'm happy to give examples. But going into one of those systems and you can connect it into tools. You can just leave it as is and start figuring out ways of actually delegating real tasks to it. But so much of learning eventually, it comes down to whether or not you are opening your computer and using this stuff. A hundred percent, I think that's so true. Okay, speaking of these agents, I feel like I always see you on Instagram talking in your phone to your agents like going on these walks. Like, can you explain what an agent is? Because like, I feel like AI 101 is just you have the little chat and you're asking it something. And then it's like, the agent is like, no bitch, you're making it do things for you. So teach us how to make it do things. First of all, you explained it beautifully. So 2023, when all of us were just using chatGPT and cloud, that was the traditional single chat thread. It looked kind of like an email inbox, you're asking it a question, it comes back to you. It could kind of browse the internet. 2024 becomes multimodal. We can like get images. We can start to get video. 2025, we start to get things called AI agents. And again, I think you described it beautifully, which is just like, it's an AI system that does stuff for you. So we can connect into tools. It can connect into Slack or Salesforce or Notion, Gmail, Google Calendar, all of those. It can take action in those tools or grab from those tools. And I might use it to summarize all the recent emails that I've gotten in the last week. I might have it pull every single email that I've had with Coca-Cola or whatever client and have it summarize everything. I could also say, look through all of my emails and my calendar and my Apple Watch data and build me a forecasting model that tells me which client is stressing me out the most and an entire action plan around it. And craft an email to send to them to reset the relationship and find me five new hires that I should bring onto my team that would be a better client relationship expert than whoever. - So smart, so then, okay, so you do that, you, and then what is this whole deal of getting the agent to know you? Like when you're talking to it, you're like, "Hey, I'm Ali, I'm a cancer." Like, I like Doritos, like what is the vibe? - For your town. - I love that context stuff. So the two things that play a role in this is context and memory. And so essentially like, my AI agent should respond differently to me than your AI agent responds to you. Part of that is our preference for how the AI should speak to us and that is something called the system instruction. And really, you're just telling your AI, cloud, tragedy, whatever. You're saying, "Hey, I hate emojis or hey, I only like really short sentences just give me the meat or stop caviating everything." Or why are you always agreeing with me, be mean to me, pretend like you're this like blunt financial advisor, whatever the thing is. And so that's system instructions, that's behavior. That's like a little employee handbook. And then on context, that is me telling it about me, my business, what types of financial decisions do I make? Am I a really high risk person? Am I a low risk person? What are my interests? What's my background? And so I have, as one example, I have a 515 line document. All these things are literally just text files. I have a 515 line document that just describes my business. - Yeah. - And I don't wanna have to waste my time prompting in multiple paragraphs. 'Cause that's actually not how we prompt AI anymore. That's how you would prompt it in 2023. It's not how you do it in 2026. And then memory is after you have an experience with an AI agent. If you say something like summarize my calendar and it does it wrong or it does it in a way that you don't want and you give it feedback, it's saving that feedback. It's building up a memory file or several files about you. So it is, I would heavily encourage people to constantly be giving feedback to your AI and not to the person next to you going, "Oh, this AI can't write." This AI keeps screwing up this spreadsheet. Tell me AI because these systems now have memory built in. So the ability to have that personalized experience through system instruction and context and memory. Literally talk to your AI system and go, "Hey, I wanna build an AI agent. "I want to bring my family together. "I want to pay off this loan, giving it that goal." And then say interview me and use that pattern. - That's a really good tip. And then it will manage its own context and memory and all that. - And so that should, each of those queries should be its own agent. So I should have like a debt payoff agent. I should have a like friend retreat agent, but it's not just all one agent. - If you were going to set up AI agents today, the way that I might think about it is having one sort of like lead agent. And so for me it's this guy, you know, big air quotes named Simon, he's my AI chief of staff. And then underneath Simon, I have six different directors that are all named after the friends. And they're just different areas of my business. So I have one that's clients. I have one that's education. Phoebe is this like weird, crazy hippie dreamer in the corner that is just like constantly thinking of new ideas. So all of this, again, I can make it sound really technical or I can just tell you to open up a blank window and say, "Hey, every time I complete a task, "I just want another agent to review that task "and make it awesome, right? "Make it 10 times more creative, 10 times more risk mitigated. "Give me five times the number of ideas. "Tell me how these eight personas might react to it, right? "Tell me three ways that I'm not thinking "about how this could go wrong." And so just having this like extra little AI watchdog. Anyway, to answer your question about like how many AI agents and what orientation start with one? And once you're kind of like, "Oh, I really want this specialized little buddy "spin up another one." And then once you need another one, spin up another one. It's like a constant iteration process. And what? So you teach us how to make an AI boyfriend? (laughing) Not recommend. (laughing) You can do it, but I don't think I'll ever teach that course. That's a crazy course. (ding) - When you put your body in the hands of a surgeon, you assume your doctor will do you no harm. - I'm looking at the surgery board for tomorrow. These people are (beep) Crooked doctors have launched their most ambitious fraud yet. Worth over $1 billion. - One doctor says,
My kickback was 25,000 and the other doctors go and while we only got 12,000. - From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Dr. Billions. Coming October 1st to The Binge, listen wherever you get your podcasts. - Some evil thing happened here. - Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. - It's not a coincidence. - One after the other. - In the same house. - The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. - Long simmering what took you so fucking long to get here. - From Sony Music Entertainment, this is what happened to The Harrison's. - Okay, Ali, I saw this statistic recently that women's jobs are three times more likely to be automated. Yet women are currently using AI 25% less than men, which like honestly reminds me of the investing gap too, where it's just like, okay, we gotta catch up. So I'm wondering, do you think this is the birth of a new gender wage gap? And what's your advice to women who are sitting the AI wave out? - There's a lot of nuance here, right? On the advice that I would give, the first thing that I want to remind every single person listening, whether you are a woman or not, is how much agency you have. And I think this also relates to the shift of just labor and capital, and that every single time there is a technological revolution, the money is going toward the capital owners. And a lot of that has been, can you afford this massive machinery or this massive facility? And it's required so much money to get over that hump and to have that cap X to be able to start something. The fact that AI subscriptions, and maybe they're a little subsidized right now, but the fact that you can have access to the most powerful models for 20 bucks a month. And yes, you have access to it at the free level, but if you're really trying to do so for 20 hours, that is insane. I don't think I've ever, ever seen a revolution that looks like what we're going through right now. Mobile development, you have to be an engineer. Internet, you have to be a web developer. Anything in the industrial age, you have to be able to build a massive facility and hire hundreds of me. There has never been as much agency as individuals have right now. And so again, for anyone that feels like they've been counted out for the last several decades or that they are in the 50% of people that have been left behind time and time again, like this is kind of the time to turn away from systems that have existed and to say, I'm going to do this on my own and grab a couple of friends and join a course or a program or just do this on your own and say, I got to figure it out. Right, like this is when the playbooks are being rewritten. It has never been more affordable to move that agency toward wealth creation. And so most people that I've seen if they're really, really on their own and they dedicate a few weeks to this, they can catch up and be in the top 10% of AI users. That's so cool. So let's get tactical. I've been saying a lot, AI's not going to take the jobs as much as it's going to create jobs for the people who really know how to use it. So if someone wanted to start using AI at work tomorrow to really perform better and start making more money, obviously this is dependent on industry, but are there three first things that they should do? So the majority of advice that is out there is still very antiquated and still very 2023, 2024. So the advice that I'm going to give is 2026 AI advice. We love it. Here we go. So the average person is going to tell you that if you open up one of these systems, that you should start with Chat with T or a Claude or Gemini, and you should do like a work audit and you should look at all the tasks you do and you should break it up into small pieces and then look at it and say, how can AI help with this little tiny piece of it? And so if I, every single week I'm sending you a recap of my work or something, clearly part of that is me looking at the work I've done and then summarizing it and writing it and sending you the email. And people will say, ah, I made AI write the email for me. I'm an amazing AI supervisor, give me a raise. And that is 2023. 2026, I would move away from this like tiny task view. And I would instead go backwards, work backwards from a goal and the two biggest features that I'd be looking at right now are slash goal and slash loop. And I'll explain those two, okay. So again, 2023, 2024, you would kind of think about this tiny little thing and you would say, ah, please help me write the email and you would do it. But what I was actually doing was updating you, right? That was the entire goal of those five steps. You agree? Yeah, getting the agent to understand what you're doing. Exactly, yeah. So the overall goal of that task was updating you. And really the overall goal of that task was like reducing your stress about what I was working on. And really what that goal was was making you a better leader, right? So if you're working backward from some tasks that you're doing and you think of the overall goal, is my goal to launch a product? Is my goal to keep my executives updated? Is my goal to compare these two loans so that I can pick which loan option is better? You have to think backwards from that goal. And the way that these systems are set up is that they're deep reasoners and action takers. So if you write into one of these AI agent systems and you type slash goal, build me a to-do list app that allows me to put in all of my financial concerns every single day and it compares it against my calendar and helps carve out time for me proactively and manage my calendar so that at least once a week I'm checking in on my finances and at least once a month I'm checking in on large things like my mortgage or my car loan or whatever the thing is, right? So giving it that goal, the big, big, big task and then it will create agents and subagents and tasks and it'll go through and figure out its own steps. - So update it but don't tell it what to do instead say what the goal is of what it does. - Basically, 2024, you would lay out the 17 steps and you would ask AI to help you with one step. - Yeah, yeah. - 2025, you would give it the 17 steps what to do all of the steps. 2026 what the AI super users are doing is they're ignoring the 17 steps and they're going what the hell is the thing at the end, right? What's the final completion? What's the final ask? Who am I trying to help? How am I trying to help them and what does that help do? What is the value and they're giving that to the AI and then the human is involved deeply in judgment of what good it looks like for that goal being completed. - So give us an example, like say, I work in marketing and I really want to get a promotion next year and a raise to maybe $200,000 and I have a really big presentation next month for Chipotle that I need to nail. - I would start first. If you're literally just opening up an Asian platform for the first time and this thing knows nothing about you. The first thing I would do is make that context gap close. So I would say exactly what you just said and I would end it with ask me questions so that you get a 95% understanding of who I am, who I'm showing up as today, what my fears are, my strengths are the last pitches that I gave to Chipotle, the five companies that I worked at before this, what my current salary is, right, you didn't mention, am I starting from 60,000 or am I starting from 190,000? The advice is going to be very, very different depending on your context. Maybe you're severely undibrated, maybe you're already overpaid and you have to switch to another company. So ask it to interview you just to be able to add that context. And again, we do the exact same thing with humans, right? If you're an executive coach and you're giving someone advice and someone said, how do I get a raise to $200,000? You think the first thing that they're gonna do is give you advice, absolutely not. The first thing that they're gonna do is ask you questions. The next thing that I would do is say, okay, can I make a plan for how I should even approach this? So it might be slash goal, I need a plan that allows me to have this raised conversation with my boss two weeks from today and it should be the most well researched thing, the most airtight thing, and it will then go off, it will decide whether to do market research on wages in your area. And again, it would have asked you where you are. It will decide whether it should go online and research best practices for how to ask for a promotion or a raise. It might decide to look up what the Fed is saying for wages only increased 3.4%. Okay, what does that mean for the percentage leap that I am asking for? And so it is figuring out those reasoning steps and it is going to keep trying and keep trying until that goal is achieved, until that condition is set. So it will keep going until it has given you a plan. It is your job as a human to decide whether that plan is good. Like I worked at Amazon for years.
Every single thing at Amazon was a document. So if Claude or Codex gave me a PowerPoint, I would have never gotten any sort of promotion or raise at Amazon. It's giving AI that rubric, that like scorecard, of what counts as good or not. And the big thing is that now AI can work backwards from a goal instead of going from tasks. AI can loop on itself two times, 20 times, literally bashing its head against a wall until it does the awesome work. And a second AI is literally checking the work of the first going, "Did I do it, did I do it, did I do it, did I do it?" I love that. You also post a lot online about how all the stuff that your AI agent is doing while you're asleep. So like what is going on? And like how can we get our agents to do things? Well, like what do you wake up with every morning from your agents? So first just on like the AI education side, AI a couple of years ago could not work overnight for you for many, many hours. It was not good enough. You don't have an AI to work overnight, then you'll be working till you die. The famous Warren Buffett quote. Yeah. And it's also like your money should be going to work for you overnight as well. Like it is the nine to five is in the trash, I think. Yeah, yeah. So what I would be thinking about is now AI can work for hours uninterrupted. You could give it low value tasks that it is just cranking out, right? I could say give me 2000 versions of my website just for funsies. And that would be AI working overnight. And it would be zero value, right? I did not create wealth. I did not create any sort of leverage. Things that I would be thinking about when you're talking about AI working for several hours. So one could be a really, really complex task. And maybe it's researching every single book ever written about personal finance. Or the top 200 books written or read every single shareholder call with Warren Buffett, right? So it could be something that is very complex or high volume. It might also be something that you want to do in a repetitive way. So every single morning, I wake up. I have a morning briefing. It is all the emails I have to respond to, everything's been pre-drafted. It's a review of my calendar, not just like, oh, you have this thing at 12. But it's like, you have this thing at 12. By the way, you should remember that the last call went really well. Or that you saw the Knicks game with them or like, whatever the thing is. So it'll give me little memory prompts or recent news about that client activities in New York. I have an entire goal section that just keeps me more goal aligned every single day. And so you might have, like, if you're trying to start a newsletter, you know, have it do research for you and have it scan through all of your posts, all of your competitor posts, all of the news related to your niche, and have it not only come up with newsletter ideas, but pre-draft all the newsletter ideas in three different voices, automatically upload it into your newsletter platform, whatever it is, have it flagged proactively, things that you should look at, have it proactively block time on your calendar to be able to review that. Like, I am waking up with a sense of agency that I have literally never had in my life because AI is working overnight for me. So how do we do that, though? So I tell the agent, hey, Ali Miller said that her agent works overnight and is sending her a briefing at 6 a.m. Do you need to do that? Yeah. You're slacking. Yeah, you could also say, look up Ali K. Miller, look up every single thing she's written about what you should tell your AI agents to do, and just go do the three highest leverage things that require the least amount of input from me. That is a slash goal, and then you type that in, and you're already cooking. And I'm literally 1% of all AI users are using these coding agents, using agent harnesses, and a percentage of that have been able to figure out how to do the sort of like promptery mix. Like, how do I grab the best of the best that's out there and immediately turn it into action? Okay, so if you've ever felt like your makeup was working against your skin, you need to try organic makeup that actually works like skincare. And that is exactly how I discovered OG. It's a certified organic beauty brand that truly performs like luxury makeup. Let's be real. Most makeup is 80 to 90% pigment and filler, but OG's crystal contour collection flips that. It is nearly 90% skincare ingredients. So it's got green coffee oil, elderberry extract, cold press, a hoba. These are ingredients I'd spend real money on in serious skincare formulas, but they just also happen to be in my blush. It's one of those routines that feels both elevated and effortless. Like, you can do your whole face in five minutes and just look like you're having a perfect skin day. I got the copper stick and it honestly gave me the most gorgeous glow without weighing my skin down. So if you are ready to raise your beauty standards, OG's got you covered. Go to og.com/financialt and use code financialt for 20% off. That is og.com/financialt and enter code financialt to get 20% off. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just clump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Maybe it's Mabelie. My next guest is the pioneering British fashion designer, renowned for his signature classic with a twist aesthetic. So Paul Smith. They say, "Oh, Paul's job, yes. Head of happiness. That's my job. I do close as well." Listen to How To Fail, whatever you get your podcasts. I wanted to ask more about using it at work, because I feel like a lot of people's bosses are sort of just being like, "You need to use AI." But they don't even know how to use AI, and there's no roadmap on how to actually do it. So, I mean, you sort of broke this down, but your advice for those people, I mean, I'll put words in your mouth, is just set up your agent. I would first validate those people to say a lot of leaders are coming down with, like, divine on high demands, saying, "You say I, or you will be fired, or you say I, and you have to figure out how to, you know, do the work of 40 people." I literally just had someone text me and say, "I know you always talk, like I say that productivity is a trap." And so I think that companies that are only prioritizing doing things faster, doing things at greater cost savings, they're destroying the mental health of their employees. And people are being expected to do the jobs of five people or 30 people with AI tools, and the bosses are giving them zero direction. And that is actually a lot of my client advising work is closing that gap. I do think that leaders can do a better job at that, yes. But I'm also going to push the employee to do some exploration, not just because it feels good to learn and be challenged, and also hopefully that your company is paying for it. But also, you might not work at that company forever, right? Like, I really believe that even though we're in this, like, low fire, low higher stage of the economy, like, I think that every single person should be making sure that their skill set is flexible beyond their company. And I say that all the time, that it's like the way to, AI say the way to all this not deprivation, it's to make more money, and then how do you make more money, it's to increase your skills. And that's honestly one of the million reasons I was so excited to have you on here, because I think that AI is at this really young stage, where simply by taking this risk, by having that growth mindset, by putting in those three weeks or whatever it takes, you can set yourself up for so much more earning potential and career opportunity. Sort of like when Instagram first started, like, you get any handle, like, it's like, it's sort of a, it's a gold rush, you know what I mean? Which also has this whole side effect of it being overhyped sometimes, but for, like, just for people listening, these are real use cases that people have come to me for. First, someone that I spoke with figured out an entire, like, investing mimicking strategy, where they said, look at what Nancy Pelosi's investing in, look at Warren Buffett. And interview me and then help me figure out how I might change my investment strategy. I've talked to people who have saved thousands of dollars a year because they literally just had AI review their subscriptions, and they just had Claude or or tragedy, go out and research every single subscription that they have and say, what are the competitors? Is this the top-ranking product in that space? How can I save money? Should I spend this subscription down? Right? And if you get enough that are, you know, 100 plus a year, you're saving thousands, like, these are real personal finance use cases that people are using AI for. I love that. So I mean, you sort of led to my next question, which was about using AI to manage finances. First of all, do you know why? Do you think that it's safe? So everyone's going to have their own risk posture. There are some people who put all of their secrets and all of their bank information and all their medical information into AI systems. And that person has decided that they're okay with the trade-off, right? The value that they gain versus the data that they're sharing. And there are going to be some people who say, I'm not connecting this thing to any single tool. I'm not giving it my Gmail, my Google calendar.
in the middle probably closer to the first person. And the thing that I would at least advocate for is trying it on personal finance use cases that don't require bank account detail sharing. Yeah. Which there are plenty just like show literally showing your transactions. It could be anyone's. Yeah. You can you can redact your documents and give it and say, hey, this is my friend. Yeah. Right. Don't even have it applied to you. And by the way, I get way better unbiased answers from AI when I go, this is from a friend. Can you review her investing strategy or his investing strategy, whatever, try a couple different hats and say, you know, help me review this from the lens of a fiscally responsible 78 year old. Have you know, another agent review this from lens of a high risk crypto loving 25 year old. Have another AI agent review this from the viewpoint of like the head of the IMF, whatever you can spin up all these different views just to have that strategy be even more robust. And I did not give it my specific accounting number, account number or routing number or my address or my EIN or any of this, right? You can use it for lower risk use cases. I think education is still a big piece. Like I sat down with AI and was like explain the Fed to me. Like explain the Fed to me. Like I'm five, yeah, break it down for me. I was learning about like Cleveland. I was learning about San Francisco and how Cleveland actually has more power and like make me feel like I finally get this. Like I want to grad school and I'm still like, huh? So it has been unbelievably helpful to explain things in my way. Education is a big one. One more use case because I'm like sweating and I just get too excited about this. I was talking to a friend who literally set up three different agents and gave each of them a thousand fake dollars and said, I want you to come up with a crazy investment strategy based on this sort of prompt and gave ABC different investment strategies and said the goal is to make a million dollars. And so he's going through loops. He's going, okay, which one of those one and then he's taking the winner and then he's morphing that one into three new option taking the winner morphing take the winner morphing. And you can have AI do this full loop for you. That's great. Like does that look crazy? It's really crazy. And I think like I talk a lot about it Mrs. Dow Jones this idea of a money date, which I still think that even if you have AI do it, it's like what you're saying about the intersection of automation and having these tools, but also with having critical thinking, like especially with your finances. You have to keep an eye on your bottom line, even if you are using all of these different, you know, menu options to make it easier, but certainly you should use AI to make them easier if you feel comfortable data wise. And I really like the way that you talk about that because I think on the internet, people search for a ride in the wrong, but I like that you look at it as a spectrum and it really is your own risk analysis. Like do you feel comfortable doing this or not? Like I personally feel completely comfortable screenshotting my transactions without like my information in them so that AI can tell me like, okay, here's how much you spent on clothes. Here's like how much you made. Here's, you know, six subscriptions that you need to cancel and like making that really easy. And you can always turn memory off. You can always say, oh, this is my friend, you know, Beatrice, whatever. You don't have to necessarily attribute it to you if you don't want your AI system to remember that. We haven't to say it's for my friend. Yeah, exactly. So with the money date, it requires that basically once a month you sit down with your finances and you manually review everything is how I have it now. Okay. Which, you know, as we're talking, I'm like, okay, this is something that definitely, if you feel comfortable data wise, could be like use AI for it. And it's basically just expose your therapy to get really clear about your personal finances. So I'm wondering for financial tea users and then it builds you a budget, right? It says like, here's where you're at. Here's where you need to go. Yeah. You pay off your debt. Should you invest all those things? So how can you use AI to improve your money dates? Like, where would you start? Okay. I'll start with basics and they'll go intermediate and then we'll go ahead of that. Okay. On the basic side, at the very least, having it like pull data for you, pull research for you. If you're trying to extend your investment strategy into like, maybe you're, you're going to allow yourself to take some more risk and you're going to buy a single stocks or maybe you have always bought the S&P and now you've got, you know, told from a friend total stock market index, you just want to like learn what that is. Basak should we do it? Exactly. Yeah. You're comparing fidelity across Vanguard. You're trying to learn something and so it could certainly just make that process be a little bit more clear. The next level up from that, that intermediate level, is using a lot of data, right? It might be connecting it into tools. It might be giving it that redacted bank transaction information. It might just be that you yourself are going to all of your, you know, banking account details or your wealthfront or whatever and just dictating to AI and saying, "Here's how much money I have here, here's how much money I have here," so you're not literally giving it any access or any screenshot even. And so feeding it that actual data so that the thing that it is creating with you is an entire spreadsheet and an action plan and you can have Google Sheets so that you can track it over time, right? That's still, I'm going to call that intermediate. Yeah, that's awesome. Let me tell you how, how you can be a crazy person with this stuff. Okay. Talk us through it. Okay. What do you think is preventing most people from having money dates? Just like fear. They don't want to. It's boring. They don't want to look at their finances. It's like scary to look at your money. Yeah. And they also don't know what to do, but the first step is. Yes. Okay. So scared fear of the unknown. They don't know what the numbers are going to look like. They don't know what's good or bad. So they're scared and they're bored, which is like the worst possible. And they don't want that they don't, they don't, there's the action. The action. Yeah. And they don't know what to do. They don't have to do what they say. Yeah. Okay. So scared, bored and paralyzed. Yeah. Horrible combination to be with literally hard to take action with that. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Number one, if you are scared, first, like I would do a money date with friends or something, even if your laptops aren't facing each other, but have some sort of accountability mechanism. Like my friends and I, we have like life adamant days where if we're all in the same city great, if we're all on Zoom great, but it is this accountability movement. And so one of the guys in our group, he had been pushing off a high yield savings account because he had been trying to optimize it down to the 0.1%. And he had been paralyzed for four years and like did not ever get an account where like get on the phone, you're just going to do one. Anyways. Okay. So if someone is scared, finding that accountability mechanism amongst your friends and telling AI saying, I am scared, give me the one tiny first step that I can do or explain what this means, you know, explain why my credit card interest rate is 29% like, is that normal? Right. So asking it for answers. Board is the one that I want to immediately attack. Yeah. Because why are we reviewing spreadsheets in the first place? Why are we looking at boring websites? Make it a frickin trivia game and make it a karaoke night. Make it a wizard that pops out of your desktop that is going to ask you 16 questions in French about your bet. Like that is so fun with it. So I would just advocate for people to say, if you're scared, you're bored and you're paralyzed, how can you say I to close the gap on the unknown? How can you say I to make it more interactive, visual, engaging, something you want to do, something you're magnetized toward and something I do all the time, whether it's my finances or not. How can I ask every single task with AI, every single goal, every single loop, every single prompt, every single whatever. At the end, I'm always going to ask AI, now what? Now what? What do we do next? What do we do next? What do we do today? How do I close the gap? If it's telling me to invest in SpaceX or pull my money out of SpaceX, whatever the outcome is, okay, how on earth do I do that? Yeah. How do you decide to trade at market rates or whatever? Like I do it after the market closed. Exactly. So that is the type of wall that I want people to see as a hard wall. And then I want people to literally view that wall as like ice cream on a hot day. And the wall is just melting and you feel like the world is possible. And that's now how I feel that I didn't feel four years ago, five years ago about finance. I love that. Thank you so much, Ali. Can you tell them where they can find you? Ali K Miller on all social media channels. I've got a newsletter that I think is going to help a lot of people, AI with Ali. And then if you've been waiting for a course that is going to help you actually become empowered in the age and learn all these little details, we've got something called the AI Fast Track, which is like a five-day email course totally free. It's so great. Thank you. Everyone, follow Ali. Thanks for coming to sip with us. See you next Thursday and stay rich.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
AI is transforming work and finance by enabling automation, goal-based task planning, and continuous learning, with individuals who understand how to use AI gaining significant advantages over those who avoid it.
The most effective AI strategies involve setting clear goals, using AI agents to work backward from objectives rather than breaking tasks into small pieces, and leveraging memory, context, and system instructions to personalize interactions.
Women are currently underrepresented in AI adoption despite facing higher automation risks, and the shift toward individual agency in wealth creation offers a powerful opportunity for equitable access to financial empowerment.
Summary:
The podcast features a deep dive into how AI is reshaping personal and professional life, with expert Ally Miller offering actionable, forward-looking advice for 2026. Central to the discussion is the shift from task-based to goal-driven AI use—where users define big outcomes like a promotion or financial independence, and AI then autonomously creates action plans, sub-tasks, and even loops to refine results. Miller emphasizes that personal finance, especially through AI-powered "money dates," can become more engaging, less intimidating, and more effective by using redacted data, peer accountability, and creative prompts to overcome fear and boredom.
She highlights that AI is not replacing human judgment but amplifying it, with humans maintaining critical oversight to evaluate outcomes. Real-world use cases include automating financial reviews, researching investment strategies, and managing subscriptions. The conversation also addresses gender disparities in AI adoption, noting that women are more likely to face automation but less likely to use AI tools—underscoring the need for inclusive, accessible learning.
Ultimately, the key message is that AI is a tool of empowerment, not a threat, and that anyone can build wealth and agency by starting small, setting clear goals, and consistently engaging with AI systems in a personalized, reflective way. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to explore free resources, such as Miller’s AI Fast Track course and newsletter, to master AI use in their personal and financial lives.
FAQs
An AI agent is an AI system that can perform actions and take decisions on your behalf, like summarizing emails or managing your calendar. Unlike simple chat, where you ask a question and get a reply, agents can connect to tools like Slack, Notion, or Google Calendar and execute tasks automatically.
You can use AI to review your transactions, compare budgeting strategies, and suggest savings by redacting sensitive information. Always start with low-risk tasks and consider using a friend’s financial data to test AI recommendations before sharing your own bank details.
Begin by clearly defining your goal—like reducing stress from work or improving financial planning—then give the AI context about yourself, your interests, and risks. This helps the agent understand your preferences and behave accordingly.
Instead of focusing on small tasks, go backward from a larger goal, like securing a promotion. AI can then create a detailed plan with sub-tasks, research, and actions, and loop on itself to refine the plan until it’s optimal.
AI is creating and transforming jobs, not replacing them. The most successful people are those who learn to use AI effectively, as it enhances productivity and opens new opportunities across industries.
Yes, AI can help you analyze your spending, compare investment options, and even simulate strategies from different perspectives—like a conservative investor or a high-risk crypto lover—to build a more robust financial plan.
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