Covid-19 related lockdown has changed our relationship with money, and people now trust robots more than themselves to manage their finances, according to a new study by Oracle and personal finance expert Farnoosh Torabi.

The study of more than 9,000 consumers and business leaders across 14 countries, including India, found that the Covid-19 pandemic has increased financial anxiety, sadness, and fear among people around the world; changed who and what we trust to manage our finances; and is reshaping the role and focus areas of corporate finance teams and personal financial advisors.

In India, 106 per cent of business leaders saw an increase in financial anxiety and stress, and their sadness grew by 47 per cent. For Indian business leaders, 95 per cent are worried about the impact of Covid-19, with slow economic recovery or recession (59 per cent), budget cuts (49 per cent), and bankruptcy (29 per cent) as their main concerns. Amongst Indian consumers, 90 per cent are experiencing financial fears, including job loss (34 per cent), losing savings (47 per cent).

The financial uncertainty created by Covid-19 has changed who and what we trust to manage our finances. To help navigate financial complexity, consumers and business leaders increasingly trust technology over people to help as 83 per cent of Indian consumers and business leaders share this belief. Almost every Indian business leader (96 per cent) believes that robots can improve their work by detecting fraud (37 per cent), creating invoices (32 per cent), and conducting cost/benefit analysis (30 per cent).

While 42 per cent of global consumers believe robots will replace personal financial advisors in the next five years 57 per cent of Indian consumers believe the same.

While the survey indicates that trust in robots is high, what is the actual level of adoption of robots at present? Guruprasad Gaonkar, Global SaaS Go-to-Market Leader, Cloud Business Group, Oracle said: “Many forward looking companies have already started the process of creating tomorrow, today. Many of these use cases are already in adoption with AI powered ERP, with more radical transformation coming from the possibility of bringing it together with Blockchain.”

“McDonalds, Wipro are some of companies that have already moved on from previously “people dependent approach” specifically with Oracle SaaS EPM i.e enterprise performance management to eliminate manual guesswork, and to be more prepared in the times of uncertainty,” he added.

But there has been a pushback on the use of AI and ML in the context of data privacy. Will this hinder the deployment of robotics? “ Organizations that collect personal data must be able to prove that they uphold privacy and security principles. Security challenges continue to mount. Only those companies that are on enterprise cloud architecture, have an opportunity to prevail against today’s threats. Also, the current and future generation are already trusting robots and AI more than ever,” Gaonkar said.

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