-snip-

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."

-snip-

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.

-snip-

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.

Every tap that I took in the Bright app seemed to nudge me toward a third-party offering, including preset "For you" buttons at the bottom of the chatbot where two of the four prewritten prompts are about getting instant cash. One of the loans offered to me through a third-party lender was for $3,900 with an annual interest rate that ranged between 160 percent and 195 percent. Bright did not respond to multiple requests for comment via phone and email.

-snip-