The Belgian Pensions Ombudsman has identified the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by future pensioners as a “new development” behind a number of complaints in 2025.

In its annual report for 2025, the ombudsman said future pensioners are increasingly seeking pension information through AI tools.

However, when they later contact the country’s pension service and receive an answer that differs from the one generated by AI, it “creates doubt about the accuracy of the information provided by the pension service”, the ombudsman explained.

“As an impartial body with pension experts, the Pensions Ombudsman is therefore best placed to determine what the correct answer is. In such cases, it is almost always the pension service that provided the correct information,” it stated.

The ombudsman said that when questions posed to AI tools are not precise, such as failing to specify that the query is about a Belgian pension, rather than Dutch or French, or the relevant pension scheme has not been provided, the answers are “usually incorrect”.

Overall, in 2025, the Pensions Ombudsman said the percentage of well-founded complaints was the lowest since its creation at 31 per cent, which it said indicates generally “very good performance of pension services”.

However, it noted that the 31 per cent figure does not necessarily suggest that complainants only had valid reasons in 31 per cent of cases.

It explained: “The Pensions Ombudsman notes that it frequently occurs that a public-sector employer has not yet correctly and fully transmitted career data to the pension service. Even if the pension service has made no error and the complaint is therefore unfounded with regard to the pension service, the pension calculation may still be incorrect.”

In these instances, the issue is resolved with the involvement of another ombudsman, for example, the Flemish Ombudswoman for career data from the education sector that were not correctly provided to the pension service.

Where a complaint was found to be well-founded, the Pensions Ombudsman achieved a positive outcome in 92 per cent of cases, the highest rate since its establishment.

Complaints included, among other things, revisions of pension decisions and the payment of interest when pensions were paid late.

---