Visa is launching an AI Financial Assistant for banking apps: What cardholders should know

Visa is launching an AI Financial Assistant to help cardholders manage their spending and achieve their financial goals.

Cardholders can use Visa's AI assistant within their banking app to chat about their card use, get savings recommendations, find out about offers from their bank, and more.

"AI Financial Assistant will basically be like any AI assistant that you use and know and love today. It's a very conversational experience," Michele Herron, head of North America value-added services at Visa, told Yahoo Finance. "You're providing your questions, asking for feedback, asking for guidance." But to make the process even easier, the assistant is already integrated into your account.

The AI assistant will be available to U.S. financial institutions for piloting starting in August. Here's what to expect.

Visa's AI Financial Assistant can help cardholders with different actions related to their spending and budget. Users can access monthly spending insights, dig deeper into spending in specific categories, ask questions about where they might find specific savings, and more.

Say, for example, you want help with saving for a big purchase and turn to an AI assistant. Instead of following up with questions about your income or extra cash, Herron said, Visa's Financial Assistant can pull the information from your banking data itself — instead of relying on you to input or import it.

"It can start making intuitive suggestions, pulling all of that data, and even benchmarking against similar consumers as you so that it can help provide that intelligence on how you're going to get there," she added.

Already, some AI agents allow users to connect their bank account information to get personalized spending info and budget advice. Over time, it remembers conversations and can better tailor the information it gives. Visa's new assistant works similarly. Like other AI assistants, it will remember the user's goals and conversations and continue to offer insights based on that memory.

The major difference is the added security. Because this assistant works directly within an issuer's banking app, cardholders don't need to link bank account information to a third party. The assistant already has the information required to provide insights without that extra step.

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There's no need to download an external app to use Visa's AI Financial Assistant. When cardholders log in to their accounts and navigate to the assistant, they can view spending summaries or chat with the assistant for more specific information. They can also use the assistant to take actions like locking their credit card or setting up spending alerts.

If a cardholder has a goal of saving more, the assistant can help them see where their money is going each month and offer an overview of the top spending categories (dining out, groceries, transportation, etc.). From there, cardholders can work with the assistant to take a closer look at each category and how the spending breaks down.

In addition to individual insights, users can also get insights from their financial institutions. Banks will be able to upload their own information to the assistant, so cardholders can get recommendations and ask specific questions about rewards redemptions, available offers, and even other banking products they might qualify for.

Like Visa, payments companies and issuers across the industry are finding ways to integrate AI into cardholders' experiences, from AI assistants to agentic payments . And cardholders are starting to embrace the change.

According to the 2026 AI Insights Report from TD Bank, 55% of Americans already use AI to manage their finances. Nearly half of the survey's respondents said they were open to using AI tools for everyday banking tasks like setting alerts and transferring funds.

Whether through agentic payments or personalized financial advice from AI assistants, it's becoming increasingly easy to make AI part of your financial plan. But it's important to keep security in mind too. Here are some tips for keeping your financial information safe:

Be wary of security breaches and scams. Never give personal information, like birth dates and Social Security numbers, to an AI assistant.