More separating couples are arriving at their first meeting with a settlement already worked out by a chatbot.
If that sounds like you, you are in very good company. Over the past year, UK searches for “best AI relationship advice” have risen by more than 550 per cent, and searches for “ChatGPT relationship advice” by nearly 400 per cent. People are asking artificial intelligence whether to end a relationship, what they might be entitled to, how to begin divorce proceedings, and how to word a difficult conversation with someone they still share a kitchen with.
We understand the appeal completely. It costs nothing, it is there at eleven o’clock at night when the house is finally quiet, and it never makes you feel foolish for asking the same question three times. For anyone worried about what professional help might cost, that is a powerful combination.
But family practitioners have been raising a concern this month, and it is worth hearing before you act on anything a chatbot has told you.
What AI divorce advice tends to get wrong
Speaking on a family law podcast in October, Stephanie Douthwaite, a partner at Harrogate Family Law, described clients arriving at first appointments with financial settlements they had built themselves using AI tools. Her concern was not the effort that had gone into them. It was that the figures often rested on assumptions that simply do not hold in English family law.
Two misunderstandings come up again and again:
- The needs principle. Many people assume a settlement means splitting everything down the middle, or getting back whatever each person put in. In practice the starting point is what each of you, and above all any children, will actually need going forward. An even split is sometimes the right answer. Very often it is not.
- Financial disclosure. Both of you have a duty to give full and frank information about what you have. A chatbot will happily produce a confident settlement using only the figures you typed into it, and it has no way of knowing what has been left out.
The things a chatbot cannot see
Artificial intelligence cannot read a room. It does not notice that one of you goes quiet whenever the pension is mentioned, or that something agreed on Tuesday had quietly unravelled by Thursday. It cannot spot an asset that was never declared. The Law Society made a related point in October, reminding everyone that AI is not a legal entity and that responsibility for decisions taken on its advice remains human. That responsibility lands on you.
There is a more uncomfortable version of this. Where one partner has handled the money throughout a relationship, a tidy, professional looking spreadsheet can be used to close a conversation down rather than open it up. If a document has appeared and you are being pressed to accept it quickly, that is a reason to slow down, not to hurry.
It does not always save money either
The other surprise is cost. People turn to AI expecting to spend less, and sometimes the opposite happens. Solicitors report receiving long, AI drafted emails full of unfocused questions that take time to unpick and move nothing forward. Some firms have gone as far as rewriting their terms of business to warn clients about it. Time spent correcting a flawed do it yourself settlement is rarely cheaper than getting it right the first time.
Where it genuinely helps
None of this means you should close the tab. Used carefully, it is a sensible place to:
- look up what terms like consent order, clean break or MIAM actually mean
- draft a list of questions to bring to a first appointment
- gather your own figures together before a disclosure conversation
- rehearse how to raise something difficult without it turning into an argument
The distinction worth holding onto is simple. Treat it as a dictionary, not as a decision.
What mediation adds that software cannot
In mediation, both of you are in the same room, or on the same call, hearing the same information at the same time. Nobody is relying on a version of the law that one of you looked up alone at midnight. A mediator will not let a figure sit there unexplained, and will ask the awkward question about the pension that your phone never thought to ask.
You also keep the decision. A mediator does not impose an outcome on anybody. What we do is make sure that whatever you agree is built on a complete picture, and that both of you genuinely understood it at the time. That is what makes an agreement hold. It is also why mediation is usually far quicker and considerably less expensive than going to court, and you can see exactly what it costs on our prices page.
So bring your research with you. If you have spent weeks asking a chatbot about your situation, you already know more about the questions that matter to you than most people do at a first meeting. We would far rather talk it through with you than have you act on it alone. If you are not sure what happens first, our frequently asked questions cover the practical points most people raise, and you are always welcome to get in touch.
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