9 AI-powered apps that help you save money
For many of us, saving money feels like an uphill battle. Most consumers (57 percent) say they’re uncomfortable with how much emergency savings they have, according to Bankrate’s emergency fund report.
Imagine having a savvy financial assistant in your pocket that not only reminds you to save, but also learns your spending habits and offers advice catered specifically to you. That’s essentially what AI-powered finance apps are — a fusion of innovative technology and the wisdom of a financial advisor to help us manage our money.
For those who’ve found saving to be a challenging endeavor, these AI-powered apps might be a game-changer. Using forecasting technology, they can anticipate monthly expenses, suggest when to save or even predict the best time to buy a plane ticket.
Best AI-powered apps to save you money
1. Wally: Best for budgeting
Wally is a completely automated personal finance app that tracks your spending, cash flow and bills to help simplify budgeting decisions. It automatically categorizes all of your expenses and income streams from connected checking, savings, credit card, loan and investment accounts.
Forecasting software is used to make personalized suggestions on how much and when to save through WallyGPT, a chatbot service built into the app.
Plus, Wally is compatible with accounts in over 70 countries, making it a helpful service for those whose finances are spread across multiple currencies.
How it can help you save: Through predictive analysis, users can anticipate monthly expenses and get a personalized savings plan.
Cost: Free
2. Cleo: Best financial chatbot
Cleo is an AI-powered savings app that’s primary selling point is its interactive chatbot. The chatbot can answer basic questions based on an analysis of your finances, such as “How much do I need to save for a vacation this year?” It can also provide more advanced insights, like a comparison of your spending categories.
With Cleo’s autosave feature, the app automatically determines how much you’re able to save and sets it aside for you on a weekly basis. You can even set up savings “fines,” so that any time you spend money on particular nonessentials, the app will move a set amount, say $5, into your savings.
How it can help you save: Cleo’s strength lies in its interactive approach. By offering real-time feedback and tailored advice, users are guided toward better spending decisions.
Cost: Free
3. Magnifi: Best for investing
Magnifi positions itself as an AI investing assistant. It offers personalized, conversational guidance to help users research and buy investments, manage and diversify their portfolios and learn about investing. When you sign up, you can link external investing accounts or invest directly through Magnifi.
How it can help you save: Leveraging AI’s predictive analysis, Magnifi can ensure optimal returns and save users from costly investment errors.
Cost: $13.99 per month or $133.99 annually
4. Rocket Money: Best for managing recurring payments
Through a combination of AI-driven analysis and user data, Rocket Money tracks all of your subscriptions and other recurring payments in a subscription control center. Then, you can identify which recurring payments are unnecessary expenses, and Rocket Money will cancel them for you.
Rocket Money also comes with autosave features, including a Smart Savings feature that predicts how much you can save every few days and automatically transfers that amount to your savings account.
How it can help you save: Rocket Money is designed to identify expenses you might have otherwise overlooked. It can help you save on unwanted subscription costs and automatically build savings.
Cost: Free; Premium is $3 to $12 per month
5. QuickBooks: Best for business owners
Known for its robust accounting tools, QuickBooks incorporates AI to automate a number of features useful to those who are self-employed and small business owners. Those features include cash flow forecasting, report generation and more.
One of the unique automated features offered by QuickBooks is mileage tracking. Its AI integration recognizes frequent trip routes and can help to track business versus personal trips, making it easier to maximize mileage tax deductions.
How it can help you save: By reducing manual data entry and the risk of human error, QuickBooks ensures accurate financial records for personal and business expenses. Having those precise records ensures you’re maximizing tax deductions, identifying areas of inefficiency and making better business decisions.
Cost: $15 to $100 per month, depending on the plan you choose
6. GridRewards: Best for reducing energy bills
GridRewards is a unique app that merges sustainability with savings. It’s a product offered by Logical Buildings, a tech company with a focus on using AI-powered technology to combat climate change. With GridRewards, consumers can both lessen their carbon footprint and reap cash benefits by getting insights on when to reduce energy consumption during peak times — usually just for a few hours at a time.
By participating with energy companies, users receive direct cash payments for their contributions to saving energy. According to a press release from February 2023, users in New York City received $80 in cash payments on average, with top savers earning up to $500.
In addition, the app provides various energy-saving actions users can take to save money on their energy bills year-long.
How it can help you save: Users can cut down on bills by getting recommendations on when and how to conserve electricity and earn direct cash payments for participating in energy-saving initiatives.
Cost: Free
7. PayPal Honey: Best for shopping deals
Paypal’s Honey is an app with an embedded browser extension, silently but efficiently scouring the internet for discounts and automatically applying them whenever users shop online. It also offers cash-back rewards on certain purchases. According to Honey, the average user saves $126 per year with the app.
How it can help you save: Over time, the cumulative savings from the automatic discounts Honey finds can be significant.
Cost: Free
8. Hopper: Best for travel deals
Hopper is an AI-powered travel companion. Using forecasting software, it advises users on the ideal times to book flights or hotels and get the best prices. It also shows you historical prices for a particular booking, so you can see how what you pay compares to past price trends.
According to Hopper’s website, its machine learning algorithms can predict flight prices at over 200 airlines with 95 percent accuracy, meaning you can feel confident that you’re getting a good deal when you book a flight through the app.
How it can help you save: When it comes to travel pricing, timing is everything. Hopper helps ensure that users have reliable information to secure their booking when prices are at their lowest.
Cost: Free
9. Waze: Best for reducing gas usage
While Waze is primarily known as a navigation app, its AI-driven real-time traffic analytics offer more than just route suggestions.
Uniquely, Waze blends AI technology with user-generated input. Its AI finds the most efficient route to get to your destination, factoring in traffic conditions, while user input can indicate things like where potholes are or when an accident occurs.
How it can help you save: By recommending fuel-efficient routes and minimizing idle time in traffic, Waze helps users save on fuel costs.
Cost: Free
How AI integration works
At the heart of AI integration is the capacity to process vast amounts of data much faster than a human could ever do. Through advanced algorithms, AI-powered apps sift through data, identifying trends, anomalies and potential saving opportunities.
What especially makes these apps unique is their ability to learn continuously, improving their suggestions and predictions as consumers use them more and therefore more data flows in. If you try out one of these apps, you may notice that the recommendations it provides are ever-evolving, adapting to your changing life circumstances and needs.
A notable element of AI in finance is forecasting software. It refers to the way AI can process past financial data to make predictions about the future. This is used to predict monthly expenses and savings opportunities.
Bottom line
AI-driven personal finance tools are transforming how we go about our daily lives and, consequently, our financial well-being. These AI-driven apps are essentially financial coaches built into your phone, equipped with specialized skills and to guide users toward healthy financial choices and saving opportunities.
Users can benefit from real-time insights, proactive financial strategies and personalized guidance. If you’re looking into AI-powered apps, be sure to research any subscription fees the app may charge and check reviews to ensure that the app is worthwhile and reliable.
