Are you smarter than your avatar?
Cécile Civiale Vuillier
Switzerland
by Cécile Civiale Vuillier
In the age of artificial intelligence, where avatars can draft legal documents, manage your digital assets, and simulate your voice in a podcast, a provocative question emerges: Are you smarter than your avatar?
It’s not a trick question. But it is a revealing one.
The rise of the digital double
From estate planning to online identity, AI is no longer just a tool – it’s a participant. Virtual assistants draft wills, analyse tax implications, and even decide who inherits your cryptocurrency wallet. Avatars, powered by large language models and algorithms, can mimic your preferences, replicate your tone, and manage your affairs with unsettling precision.
But here’s the catch – they don’t understand you. Not really.
Intelligence ≠ wisdom
Your avatar might process legal code faster than you can read the table of contents. It may never forget a password or miscalculate an estate tax. But it lacks what truly defines human intelligence: context, emotion, and judgment.
Take, for example, a case in Norway where an AI-powered chatbot falsely accused a man of murdering his children. The system pulled real personal data and combined it with hallucinated crime details, causing immense emotional and reputational damage. Smart? Yes. Safe? Absolutely not.
Or consider estate planning. An AI might divide assets evenly among heirs, not realising your daughter has special needs, or that your son is financially independent. It can’t read between the lines of family tension or offer counsel on the ethics of disinheritance.
The digital you is brilliant – and blind
AI tools excel at recognising patterns and making decisions based on data. In digital estate planning, they can:
Catalogue digital assets like crypto, NFTs, and online accounts;
Store passwords in secure vaults;
Use smart contracts to automate inheritance; and
Alert you when terms of service change.
But when families try to access a loved one’s locked iPhone, or fight Facebook’s privacy rules to retrieve a deceased child’s messages, AI shows its darker side. It becomes a wall, not a window. A protector of data, not a preserver of legacy.
The human factor is still irreplaceable
Here’s what your avatar can't do:
Grasp the emotional consequences of excluding a sibling from a will;
Understand when “another meeting...” is sarcasm, not joy;
Mediate between estranged relatives during succession planning; or
Create legal documents with full jurisdictional compliance, especially across borders.
The smartest avatars still need you – or rather, someone like you: a living, breathing human capable of nuance, empathy, and moral reasoning.
In sheer processing power, no. In memory recall, certainly not. In emotional intelligence, legal judgment, and ethical foresight? Absolutely.
The better question might be: Can you make your avatar work smarter for you without surrendering your soul in the process?
The goal isn’t to compete with your avatar. It’s to collaborate. To let it automate the mechanical, while you navigate the meaningful. AI is your apprentice, not your heir.
So yes, you are smarter than your avatar. Because you know when not to trust it.
Cécile Civiale Vuillier, TEP, is Partner and CEO of Trustconsult in Switzerland and Head of Private Client for Trustconsult Group. She has an extensive wealth and estate planning career, particularly in the UK, earning a solid reputation for her work on international trust and foundation. Her experience includes managing complex and sophisticated trust and corporate structures for private and corporate clients located around the globe. Contact Cécile.
XLNC member firm TrustConsult (Suisse) S.A.Geneva, SwitzerlandT: +41 22 716 02 32
