Credit Karma unveils updated AI tools to help you better understand your finances

Since its launch in 2007, Credit Karma has aimed to help people make sense of their finances by providing them with key insights, resources, and more. On Wednesday, Credit Karma unveiled an updated version of Intuit Assist, a generative AI financial assistant initially launched in private beta last fall. 

The AI assistant, available to all Credit Karma users on the app, can now assist with a wider range of topics, including personal finances. 

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Like any other chatbot, you can chat conversationally with Intuit Assist to get answers to your financial questions. However, the difference between Intuit Assist and any other AI chatbot capable of providing financial advice is that it is grounded in your data. 

"We want AI to really understand, so we're trying to give AI a sense, not just of what your data is, but who you are and what probably matters to you right now so it has a good way to talk to you," said Ryan Graciano, Credit Karma's Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder.

Intuit Assist can answer questions regarding your finances using the information you have linked to your Credit Karma profile, such as personal spending, debt, net worth, and more. 

Users can ask Intuit Assist for anything from financial advice to general finance questions, such as what a term means, to specifics about their financial health, with the chatbot acting like a 24/7 financial advisor. I had the opportunity to demo the product, and my favorite feature was the chatbot's insights on spending habits. 

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During the demo, Graciano asked Intuit Assist to learn more about his spending habits last month. The chatbot provided a complete breakdown accompanied by a colorful graph visualizing the spending, as seen below, all within seconds. 

"We built some pretty cool technology that can then take that AI response and visualize it, and the AI actually decides what visualization to show, which is also pretty neat," said Graciano. 

Users can then use those insights to inform their future financial decisions, such as adjusting spending habits, budgeting, or deciding which credit card to open to maximize rewards. If they need advice on acting on those insights, users can ask Intuit Assist further questions. 

Other instances of AI on the app include the "Your Insights," "Ask Intuit Assist," and "FAQs" sections, which leverage AI to show you the information that it deems most helpful and pertinent to you. For example, under "Your insights," you will see trends based on your financial data, such as your connected accounts, credit score, and profile.

"If you consider what you would want a financial assistant to do for you, you wouldn't want to call them [human, financial advisor] every day and ask them what I should pay attention to today," said Graciano. "You actually want them to reach out to you and say, these are the things you pay attention to, so that's kind of the idea."

The FAQs section displays frequently asked questions from Credit Karma members, which users can then click on to prompt a conversation with Intuit Assist to explore the topic further. Similarly, the "Ask Intuit Assist" section displays what Credit Karma calls "top-of-mind questions" across different financial topics, which users can also click on to learn more about. 

Lastly, the new "shop intelligently" AI-powered credit card shopping experience provides users with personalized and contextualized explanations regarding which card best fits them, using their debt and financial health as factors when recommending a card. 

"If you're interested in, you know, one card or another, Credit Karma is also really good at this because we have a much more transparent approval than many of our competitors," said Graciano. "I always like to draw an analogy to shopping for pretty much anything else on the internet -- it's really weird to go anywhere and see a list of products and not know if you can get them -- and so our site really strives to make it as transparent as possible."

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To help users navigate the card shopping experience, embedded questions and commands allow them to educate themselves further on the card options. A sample command would be, "Help me compare travel card offers," which, when tapped, would prompt an AI-generated response. 

Naturally, you may be apprehensive about letting AI access your financial data. However, Graciano said security was at the top of their minds. 

"Security is in our DNA," said Graciano. "Secure by design has been one of our principles for as long as I've been here; it has been everything we have done; everything we do is always security first."

Another widespread concern regarding generative AI models is their credibility, as they are prone to hallucinations. So, how much can you trust the advice Intuit Assist gives? Graciano shares that although the technology is imperfect, it is well-informed on Intuit data and content, allowing it to perform with impressive accuracy.

"It is true that the nature of the technology is not perfect; to be frank, though, traditional software technology is also not perfect," said Graciano. "What's really imperfect is going and reading 1000 articles online, digesting them, trying to understand what they mean, and then making decisions." 

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"We have a huge advantage in that Intuit has a lot of data and a lot of content, and with our content, we can really hone it in on what makes sense -- so it's very unlikely to tell you something really wild and out there." 

I have been a Credit Karma user since I was looking into opening my first credit card in my freshman year of college and have found the platform genuinely helpful in understanding my finances. 

When I was briefed on these tools, as a user, I became genuinely excited about what they have to offer as they seem like they will elevate the user experience and provide insights that I could benefit from learning myself. However, I am curious to see how it will handle the challenges above, and I will put it to the test myself to find out.  

If you, too, want to access these new features, you need only create a free Credit Karma account and download the app, which is free and available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.