Mental Floss

A New Chatbot Can Help You With Your Personal Finance Questions

By Michele Debczak

Kasisto
Kasisto / Kasisto
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Technology presents us with more ways to save, spend, and keep track of our money today than ever before. But when it comes to straightforward finance questions, sometimes combing through your banking app is more trouble than it’s worth. As The Verge reports, MyKAI is a new chatbot that makes looking up specific transactions as easy as sending a text.

On Tuesday, June 28, Kasisto debuted two versions of their newest conversational AI platform. The first is designed for consumers to connect to their existing bank accounts. After submitting your banking passwords—which are handled by a secure third party, not the service itself—the bot will be standing by to answer your personal finance questions through either SMS, Facebook Messenger, or Slack. Instead of navigating your account online or calling up customer service, you can ask specific questions like “How much did I spend on gas last month?” or “What’s the Fair Billing Act?” and receive immediate answers. MyKAI is also programmed to keep track of the topics you cover as the conversation progresses, not unlike an actual human being.

Answering questions isn’t the only area where MyKAI can help. After connecting the service to your Venmo account, you can ask the bot to make payments on your behalf. Moving money back and forth between your own accounts is a bit trickier; for that you’ll have to wait for your personal bank to adopt MyKAI’s second version. The Royal Bank of Canada and Singapore-based DBS Bank have already agreed to get on board, and if the program is a success, banks in the U.S. may soon follow. While some have noted the service has some room for improvement, it's part of a growing trend in AI-assisted banking that suggests that when it comes to the future of managing finances, we can expect smart software to be there to help along the way. 

You can sign up here to get MyKAI for yourself.

[h/t The Verge]

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