How an Artificial Intelligence Asset Search Would Start (and Stall)

AI will tell you a lot, but if you ask it to unblock a drain or patch your roof you will be disappointed. All the how-to’s in the world won’t get the job done for you.

I tried doing an asset search from the very beginning on Perplexity, one of the leading AI engines. I asked it, “How can I tell if my husband is hiding assets?” The answer is a lot of useful but general information about “claims of financial struggles despite spending on expensive items” or “Refusal or delays in providing financial information and documents.”

Pretty obvious, as is “Disappearance of valuable items like jewelry.”

It then said,

To investigate further, you can review tax returns for undisclosed income or investments, closely examine bank accounts for irregular transfers, and look into business and property records where applicable. If concerns persist, consulting a family law attorney or forensic accountant can help uncover hidden assets during divorce proceedings or financial disputes.

That sounds to me like the notice on the back of a bottle of drain cleaner: “If clog persists, call plumber.”

Then, assuming  an AI user is convinced there is a good chance her husband has hidden assets, I changed the question to, “How can I find my husband’s hidden assets?”

Perplexity recommends you monitor spending and financial records, review bank accounts, check public and business records, but pretty soon it talks about the possible need for experts.

Under the heading “Use Legal Discovery Tools in Divorce Proceedings” it advises you to “Consider hiring a forensic accountant specialized in tracing hidden assets, including those in digital forms like cryptocurrency.”

Forensic accountants are often valuable additions to an asset search team. I’ve written before about when to call one, when to call an investigator, and when you may need both.

But for the purposes of seeing how much AI can help do the job as opposed to telling you in general terms what the job is, it remains weak on the doing part.

In other words, if clog persists, call plumber.

If public records remain elusive, secret company names remain unknown, banking and business relationships remain murky at best, call investigator.

PS:

In case you think I’m too hard on AI, I asked Google to evaluate the text above. Here’s what it said:

The user-submitted post correctly identifies the major limitations of using a general-purpose AI chatbot for complex tasks like finding hidden assets. The core argument—that AI provides useful, but superficial, “how-to” information without the capacity to “do” the job—is accurate when comparing it to trained human professionals.