Honest comparison
Prova vs ChatGPT for financial modeling
AI is genuinely great at explaining finance. It is documented to be unreliable at computing it. That difference is the whole story.
What 2026 testing found about AI-built models
Wall Street Prep's 2026 benchmark of AI modeling tools — including ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude in Excel — scored the best performer below even a lower-tier human analyst. The failure modes were consistent across tools:
- Hallucinated historical financial data presented with full confidence
- Hardcoded values where live formulas belonged
- Failure to build circularity (interest expense ↔ debt balance)
- Excel exports containing static numbers, not formulas that recalculate
None of this makes AI useless — it makes it an unreliable calculator. Prova takes the opposite approach: every output comes from deterministic financial math, and AI is only allowed to interpret results, never to produce them.
Side by side
| Capability | Prova | ChatGPT / general AI |
|---|---|---|
| Explains finance concepts | ||
| Deterministic, auditable calculations | ||
| Live market data (any public ticker) | ||
| Formula-driven Excel export (recalculates) | ||
| Handles model circularity correctly | ||
| Same inputs always produce same outputs | ||
| IRR via real root-finding (Newton-Raphson) | ||
| Debt waterfall with cash sweeps | ||
| Open-ended Q&A on any topic | ||
| Drafts emails, essays, cover letters | ||
| Risk of hallucinated financials | None | Documented |
| Price | $0–15/mo | $0–20/mo |
The honest recommendation: use both
Ask ChatGPT to explain why exit multiples compress, or to quiz you on accounting questions — it's excellent at that. Then come to Prova to actually run the numbers: pick a real ticker, build the DCF or LBO with live data, and export a formula-driven workbook you can defend line by line. Learning theory from AI and practicing on a deterministic engine is the strongest combination available.