Human oversight, data privacy, and direct access to an advisor are the three conditions Canadian investors say must be in place before they will accept artificial intelligence playing any role in their investment decisions, according to new research from the Responsible Investment Association (RIA).
The findings, drawn from the RIA's Fall 2026 Investor Pulse Check - an Ipsos poll of 1,001 Canadian individual investors conducted between August 11 and 17, 2026 - arrive as wealth management firms are rapidly integrating AI into their workflows. The data suggest that technology adoption, unchecked by human involvement, risks eroding the very trust that advisors have spent years building with clients.
Human oversight was cited as the leading factor important to investor comfort with AI-supported decisions, at 42 per cent, followed by protection of personal information at 41 per cent and access to a human advisor at 40 per cent. Nearly three in ten investors (29 per cent) said they would not be comfortable with AI supporting their investment decisions at all.
The survey lays bare a fault line between generations that has direct consequences for how financial planners communicate the role of technology in their practice.
Among investors aged 55 and older, 43 per cent said they would not be comfortable with AI supporting their investment decisions. That figure drops to 24 per cent among those aged 35 to 54 and falls further still to just 15 per cent among investors aged 18 to 34. For firms managing multigenerational client bases, the implication is that the same AI tool that reassures a younger client could alienate an older one.
"These findings show that investors still want people in the picture when AI is used to support investment decisions," said Patricia Fletcher, CEO of the Responsible Investment Association. "Human oversight, privacy and access to an advisor all matter to investor comfort with AI. As the industry adopts new tools, the opportunity is not simply to introduce more technology, but to use it in ways that preserve the trust and human connection investors value."
The broader picture on what investors want from an advisor reinforces the point. Understanding financial goals ranked as the top factor investors consider very important when choosing an advisor, cited by 68 per cent of respondents.
Clearly explaining risks and opportunities followed at 65 per cent. By stark contrast, only 17 per cent of investors said an advisor's use of technology or AI was very important.
Beyond the AI findings, the Pulse Check surfaces a significant and strategically relevant picture of Canadian investor appetite for thematic investment opportunities.
At least half of respondents expressed interest in allocating a portion of their portfolios to every area tested, though interest generally skewed moderate rather than strong.
Energy security led the list at 65 per cent, followed by domestic manufacturing and supply chains at 64 per cent and critical minerals at 62 per cent. The findings land at a time when Canada's role in the global energy transition and the resilience of domestic supply chains are subjects of active policy debate in Ottawa.
Regional differences add another layer of complexity for advisors building portfolios with a geographic lens. Interest in critical minerals stood at 67 per cent in British Columbia and 65 per cent in Ontario but fell to 49 per cent in Quebec.
Advanced technologies showed the reverse pattern, with Quebec investors expressing the strongest interest at 61 per cent, compared with 55 per cent in Ontario and 46 per cent in British Columbia. Domestic manufacturing and supply chains, by contrast, attracted relatively consistent interest across all three provinces. These regional nuances echo findings from earlier RIA research - Wealth Professional's coverage of the Spring 2026 Investor Pulse Check found that cost-of-living pressures and economic resilience were top concerns for investors across Canada.
"There is interest across every area we tested, but the findings also show important differences in what resonates most with investors," Fletcher said. "Energy security, domestic manufacturing and critical minerals are among the areas attracting the most interest nationally, while the regional results reinforce that investors across the country do not necessarily see the same opportunities in the same way."
The macroeconomic context continues to frame investor decision-making across all age groups, though differently. Inflation remains the single most cited influence on investment decisions overall, at 43 per cent, with affordability following at 37 per cent. Canada's economic resilience ranked third at 30 per cent, with global geopolitical uncertainty at 29 per cent.
Generationally, inflation bears down more heavily on younger investors: 55 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 cited it as a leading influence on their decisions, compared with 34 per cent of those aged 55 and older. For advisors working with younger clients, the implication is that financial planning conversations must take inflation and affordability concerns seriously and not treat them as noise around longer-term investment objectives.
The Fall 2026 Investor Pulse Check is part of a recurring research series produced under the Responsible Investment Research Initiative, which also publishes the annual Canadian Responsible Investment Trends Report, Investor Opinion Survey and Advisor RI Insights Study.
Advisors seeking to understand how responsible investment allocations are shifting as Canadian investor demand grows will find the full report a useful reference.