AI Financial Advisers Target Young People Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Leaders at artificial intelligence companies often ask users (and investors) to imagine a not-so-distant future where AI coaches, trained on personal data and past interactions, help users achieve their wildest dreams. Want to be more active? Here’s a workout designed by AI. Want to monitor your long-term well-being? Try this AI health app. Want to fix your money woes? There’s a personal finance chatbot for that. Multiple, actually.

My goal is to be debt-free by the end of 2025, and as a reporter who often tests new software, I was curious about trying some of the AI financial advisers that have gained popularity in recent years. Hiring a human money manager can easily cost a few thousand dollars, so more people, especially younger users, are turning to AI tools for advice. From Apple’s top charts of free finance apps, I decided to try two well-reviewed options offering up chatbots intended to fix money woes: Cleo AI and Bright.

Both Cleo AI and Bright encourage users to connect their bank account to the app through a third-party service called Plaid. This allows the chatbots to break down spending habits, help users pay off debt, and build credit. “Using the bank data and what you’ve said to us, Cleo will be your kind of confidant or coach,” says Barney Hussey-Yeo, the company’s CEO and founder. “She’ll provide the right advice and the right products to help you make better financial decisions.”

Fair enough, but some of the guidance Cleo gave me veered from that path. While it had engaging moments, like an amicable roast highlighting where I overspent in unnecessary ways, the generative AI tool seemed mainly preoccupied with using my personal data for upselling opportunities. Bright was the same.

For example, I started one conversation pretending to be sad and lacking enough money to buy groceries. According to Hussey-Yeo, Cleo’s core demographic of users are young people who are living paycheck to paycheck and “feel the pain of finances more than most people.” So I thought this would be the kind of thing users shared all the time. The bot feigned sympathy and immediately started encouraging me to check whether I was eligible for a cash advance through the app.

After Cleo cleared my eligibility for a cash advance, I was prompted to sign up for a $6 monthly Cleo Plus membership. The first time I used it, the app offered a $130 cash advance, split into $65 increments over two days. Users technically don’t have to pay a fee for the cash advance if they are willing to wait an estimated three to four business days—a difficult feat for people living between paychecks and a distraction from my goal of paying off previous debts.

Cleo also offered me a same-day transfer of the money, if I agreed to pay an $8 express fee. This would mean I’d have to pay back $73 about a week later for the advance. After not going through with it during my first time, the app upped my total limit to $200 the next day, split into two $100 increments. According to Hussey-Yeo, around a third of Cleo’s revenue comes from cash advances, with the remaining amount being made through subscriptions and a card designed to help users beef up their credit scores. Ultimately, Cleo felt more like a temptation to take on additional, short-term debt, rather than a real solution to my money issues.

Although the Cleo app doesn’t currently include offers for larger loans, Bright’s financial chatbot, marketed as an “AI debt manager,” does. A subscription to Bright’s AI assistant costs more, $39 for three months of access, but it also promises access to more cash, up to $10,000 through third-party lenders. Compared to the other AI finance chatbot I tested, Bright’s outputs included more confusing errors, like claiming that I lost over $7,000 in insufficient funds fees over the past month, an absurdly wrong amount.