Title:
AI Meets Culture: A Study on AI-guided Financial Choices of Indians at Home and Abroad

Authors:
Dr Jaya Jacob M, Dr Shankar Subramanian Iyer, Haritha Girish, UAE

Abstract:

The proliferation of AI technology in financial advisory services has brought novel changes to the way investors digest, make sense and act upon financial information. Yet, behaviour in response to technology-informed advice remains informed by cultural heritage and social environment. We seek to understand how the Indian expatriates in the United Arab Emirates differ with their resident counterparts, Indian investors when responding to AI-based robo-advisory investment advice. Based on behavioural finance and cross-cultural psychology, it explores trust in technology, risk tolerance, emotional bias and decision confidence. Information is gathered from questionnaires as well as in-depth interviews with expatriate and resident investors and permits the comparison of investor behavior. Results find that expatriate investors, having been influenced by acculturation, social adaptation and exposure to different financial systems, are generally more open to AI-based applications but demonstrate classical risk perception biases. By contrast, local investors exhibit much more emphasis on their own judgement and peer approval. The study adds to increasing debate on cultural cognition in AI augmented finance and offers implications for financial institutions in the development of adaptive advisory models for multicultural markets.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51505/IJEBMR.2025.91215