The company announced a dozen new products at its Wealthsimple Presents event in Toronto on Thursday, including Penny, its new AI assistant.
The company says Penny can cue up transactions like e-transfers, flag duplicate credit card charges, manage expenses, and pay invoices, in addition to providing insights into users’ finances or giving advice on questions like how to maximize RRSP contributions.
For self-directed investors, it can also help with buying or selling equities, ETFs, or other assets.
AI assitant to have some guard rails
The company says the AI assistant won’t move money, place a trade, or complete any other task without confirmation from the client.
“So much of the friction that comes with a lot of these actions—it’s getting them ready. If we’re talking about an e-transfer, it’s making sure I have the contact set up, I’m e-transferring the right amount. All of those things, the minutiae that block us on a day-to-day; the AI assistant can handle,” Jordan Deutsch, a director of software development at Wealthsimple, said in an interview.
“When it comes time to actually hitting send, that’s an action that the user alone can take.”
She added that the AI assistant exists within the Wealthsimple platform and doesn’t have access to the outside internet. “We don’t want to expose a whole wealth of outside data that we have less control over to our AI assistant,” she said.
Announcement comes as companies pushing for AI intergration
The launch comes as tech giants in Canada and the U.S. push toward integrating AI into commercial activities, leading to cybersecurity concerns.
“What we’re not advocating is sharing your primary credentials with a third party … And at the same time, we know that a lot of clients want to use agents to engage with their finances. So, our objective is to create safe direct connections that don’t require credential sharing so that clients are empowered to do so,” Deutsch said.
However, the company said that by early 2027, clients will be able to connect their Wealthsimple accounts to other AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude, based on the levels of access granted by the client.
Some of the other products launched at the Wealthsimple Presents event include Wealthsimple Pay, which allows clients to send up to $100,000 instantly to other Wealthsimple clients, as well as temporary virtual cards that can offer more protection against fraud with custom expiry dates and spending limits.
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