There has never been a cheaper or faster way to “make a will.” Type a prompt into ChatGPT and it will hand you a complete-looking will in thirty seconds. Buy a will kit from the newsagent for under twenty dollars and fill in the blanks. Both feel like a sensible way to tick an important box without paying a lawyer.
The trouble is that a will is not judged on how complete it looks. It is judged—after you have died and can no longer fix anything—on whether it meets the strict requirements of your state’s succession law and clearly says what you meant. That is exactly where AI-drafted and DIY wills tend to fall apart.
As the Chief Technology Officer of a legal company that uses AI every day, I am the last person to tell you technology has no place in law. It has an enormous place. But there is a world of difference between using AI to do the administrative heavy lifting under the supervision of an Australian lawyer, and trusting a chatbot to be your estate planner. This guide explains where DIY and AI wills go wrong, what actually makes a will valid in Australia, and how to get the best of both worlds.
Why “It Looks Right” Isn’t Enough
A will is one of the only legal documents whose author cannot be questioned when it matters most. If a contract is ambiguous, the parties can clarify it. If a will is ambiguous, invalid, or missing something, you are gone—and your family is left to argue about what you “must have meant,” often in court, often for years.
That is why Australian law sets formal requirements for wills and why courts take them seriously. An AI tool optimises for producing fluent, confident-sounding text. It does not optimise for the things that actually decide a will’s fate: correct execution, compliance with your state’s Wills Act or Succession Act, and language that holds up against a disappointed relative’s challenge.
Five Ways AI and DIY Wills Fail in Australia
1. They default to the wrong country’s law
Large language models are trained on enormous amounts of text, much of it American. Ask a general AI tool to draft a will and you will often get US concepts: “executor” rules that don’t match Australian practice, references to “living trusts,” “estate tax” planning (Australia has no inheritance or estate tax), or “notarisation” (Australian wills are witnessed, not notarised). Succession law in Australia is also state-based—the rules in New South Wales differ from Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and the rest. A generic AI draft has no reliable way to know which state’s rules apply to you, and will happily produce something that is subtly wrong for your jurisdiction.
2. They can’t assess your testamentary capacity
For a will to be valid, you must have testamentary capacity: broadly, you must understand that you are making a will, understand the nature and extent of your assets, and appreciate who might reasonably expect to benefit. This is a human judgement. A lawyer taking instructions watches for confusion, assesses whether you understand what you own, and—where there is any doubt (for example, an early dementia diagnosis)—arranges a contemporaneous medical assessment to protect the will against later challenge. An AI tool cannot do any of this. It assumes capacity it has no way of verifying.
3. They get the witnessing wrong
This is the single most common way DIY wills fail. In every Australian state and territory, a will must be signed by you in the presence of two witnesses who are present at the same time, and those witnesses must then sign in your presence. Get this wrong and the will may be invalid. Worse, a frequent DIY mistake is having a beneficiary (or a beneficiary’s spouse) act as a witness—under the law, that witness-beneficiary can lose their gift. An AI draft might mention “have it witnessed” in passing, but it cannot stand in your living room and make sure two independent adults are physically present at the right moment.
4. They can’t detect pressure or undue influence
Wills are sometimes challenged on the basis that the will-maker was pressured into them. A lawyer takes instructions from you, ideally alone, and can notice when a new partner or adult child is doing the talking. A chatbot has no idea who is sitting next to you typing the prompt. If a will is later challenged for undue influence, the absence of any independent professional involvement makes it far harder to defend.
5. They leave gaps that quietly defeat your wishes
Good estate planning is about the whole picture, not just the document. AI and DIY wills routinely miss things such as:
- Superannuation, which usually passes outside your will via a death benefit nomination, not through the will at all.
- Jointly owned property, which often passes automatically to the surviving owner regardless of what the will says.
- What happens if a beneficiary dies before you (no substitute gift, so the gift can fail).
- Specific gifts of assets you no longer own at death (the gift simply disappears—a doctrine called ademption).
- Guardians for minor children, digital assets, and the practical powers your executor will need.
None of these produce an error message. The document looks finished. The gaps only emerge when it is too late to correct them.
How ezylegal helps: This is exactly the problem we built our service to solve. Our AI intake assistant, Rachel Z, gathers your information and asks the right questions 24/7—but it never signs off on your will. Every document is reviewed by a qualified Australian lawyer for your state before anything is finalised. You get the speed and low cost of technology with the safety of real legal oversight. Start a free chat now.
What Actually Makes a Will Valid in Australia
While the details vary slightly by state, a valid will generally requires all of the following:
- It is in writing. Typed or handwritten, but a physical (or properly executed) document.
- You have testamentary capacity at the time you make it.
- You intend it to be your will and to take effect on your death.
- You sign it (or direct someone to sign on your behalf in your presence).
- Two independent witnesses are present together when you sign, and they sign in your presence.
- You are free from undue influence—the will reflects your genuine wishes.
A will that ticks all six boxes is hard to challenge. A will that misses even one can be partly or wholly invalid, no matter how professional the wording looks.
A note on “informal wills”
Australian courts do have a “dispensing power” that can, in limited cases, admit an informal document—even a text message or a note on a phone—as a will. Cases like this make headlines. But they are expensive, uncertain, and decided after a contested court application. Relying on the dispensing power is not a plan; it is what families are forced to fall back on when there was no proper plan at all.
When Is a DIY Will Actually Okay?
To be fair to will kits: if your situation is genuinely simple, a carefully executed kit can produce a valid will. “Simple” usually means:
- You are single, or in a stable first marriage with no children from prior relationships.
- Your assets are modest and straightforward.
- You have no business, family trust, or self-managed super fund.
- No one is likely to feel unfairly left out.
The risk rises sharply the moment any of the following enter the picture: a blended family, property, a business, a large superannuation balance, an estranged relative, or a beneficiary with special needs. These are precisely the situations where a cheap will most often turns into an expensive dispute.
How ezylegal helps: Not sure which camp you’re in? Our intake process flags the complications most people don’t know to look for—superannuation, blended families, jointly owned property—before they become problems. If your matter is simple, we’ll tell you. If it isn’t, you’ll know exactly why it’s worth getting right. See our transparent fixed fees.
DIY done right: If your estate genuinely is simple, a guided, state-compliant tool is a world away from asking ChatGPT to wing it. Our sister site ezyWill walks you through a legally valid, state-specific will in about 15 minutes from $99/year—with the witnessing and execution steps built in, not left to guesswork. For blended families, businesses, or anything likely to be contested, stick with ezylegal’s lawyer-reviewed service.
The Real Cost Comparison
A will kit costs around twenty dollars. An AI prompt costs nothing. A contested estate—where the will is unclear, improperly witnessed, or missing key assets—routinely costs the estate tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and can take years to resolve. That cost comes straight out of the inheritance you were trying to protect, and it lands on the very people you wanted to provide for.
The honest comparison is not “free AI will” versus “expensive lawyer.” It is “a small, predictable fee now” versus “a large, unpredictable cost later, paid by your family.”
How ezylegal helps: We use AI to strip out the administrative cost that makes traditional wills expensive, then put a real lawyer on the legal review. The result is a properly drafted, state-compliant will at a fixed fee—no hourly billing, no surprises. Learn about our wills and estates service.
The Hybrid Approach: Technology and a Lawyer
Here is the principle we run our whole company on: AI is brilliant at gathering and organising information, and unsafe at making legal judgements. A will involves both. So we split the work the way it should be split—the technology handles the intake, the questions, and the document assembly; the lawyer handles capacity, jurisdiction, strategy, and the final review.
You should be deeply sceptical of anything that asks you to skip the second half. A will is not the place to find out that “good enough” wasn’t.
Get a Will You Can Actually Rely On
- Start a Chat: Tell Rachel Z about your situation—it takes a few minutes and is available 24/7.
- Lawyer Review: A qualified Australian lawyer reviews your circumstances and your draft for your state.
- Sign With Confidence: We guide you through correct signing and witnessing so your will is valid and hard to challenge.
No billable hours. No US-law guesswork. No gaps you’ll never get to fix.
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