NEW YORK – Envision a world where your bank can seamlessly transfer funds for you with just a hint of digital approval, or where it can alert you to your spending habits and offer solutions to improve your financial health. This futuristic vision is becoming a reality with Cash App’s latest innovation, MoneyBot, a financial services chatbot set to be integrated into its banking app this winter.

MoneyBot represents a leap forward from traditional bank chatbots, which typically only handle simple tasks like updating an address. This sophisticated tool is designed to perform complex actions on behalf of the user, such as devising a savings strategy, trading stocks, or analyzing spending patterns to provide tailored financial advice.

This advancement is part of a broader technological evolution known as “agentic” AI. Unlike previous iterations that mainly focused on generating text, answering queries, or suggesting products, agentic AI transforms these chatbots into proactive agents capable of performing actions online, such as purchasing items.

In this burgeoning landscape, companies like Amazon have introduced Rufus alongside Alexa to not only inform customers about products but also facilitate purchases. Similarly, Walmart is unveiling “Chat & Buy,” and Microsoft is rolling out Copilot Shopping, showcasing the diverse applications of agentic AI across industries.

However, the rise of agentic AI is not without its controversies. Amazon has recently filed a lawsuit against an AI chatbot company named Perplexity, accusing it of computer fraud. The allegations suggest that Perplexity’s AI shopping agents are masquerading as human users to gain unauthorized access to customer accounts. Perplexity has firmly denied these accusations.

Traditional banks have had chatbots for a while, notably Bank of America’s “Erica” or “Ask Amex” from American Express, but have hesitated to roll out agentic AI. They worry about possible liability if a chatbot buys a product by mistake for a customer or is maliciously used to buy things it is not supposed to.

“Our top priority is to keep our customers’ and clients’ data safe above all else,” said Mark Birkhead, chief data officer at JPMorgan Chase, in an interview with the consulting firm McKinsey back in June.

Cash App on the other hand is diving in head first.

One notable feature of MoneyBot is its prompts and suggestions. When MoneyBot launches, it does an analysis of the the customer’s transactions and spending and gives them independent recommendations on actions they could take. Unlike other bank chatbots, which take you to other parts of a banks’ website, MoneyBot’s transactions and analysis happen inside a single screen. Cash App’s executives see MoneyBot becoming the primary way people interact with CashApp in the future.

Want to know your biggest spending categories instantly and how to cut your spending? MoneyBot gives several suggestions in a matter of seconds, showing you the merchants you spent with. Need to save $1,000 toward a vacation in six months? MoneyBot creates an automated savings plan for you with only a couple of prompts.

Want to put money into the stock market? It takes only a request and confirmation in MoneyBot, which will buy Tesla stock for you or even bitcoin. MoneyBot will remind you, however, that it does not give investing advice.

MoneyBot may even anticipate why the customer is opening up the app in the first place.

“We have such a deep understanding of who you are that it’s almost a failure if we have to rely on customers to ask right questions,” said Owen Jennings, executive officer and business lead at Block, in an interview.

Company officials pointed out that, despite having these agent abilities, MoneyBot will still need active confirmation from the user to do many of its money-moving tasks. But that confirmation is often just a simple push of a button or a “yes” in a chat box.

Cash App executives say MoneyBot uses three different AI models, choosing the most appropriate one for the customer’s question. Some are easier to recognize, including the eager-to-please tone that often comes with ChatGPT 5.

A Cash App employee demo’ing MoneyBot, much to his chagrin, showed that he spent heavily at Nordstrom last month. MoneyBot kindly suggested he might want to cut back on his clothing purchases if he needs to save money.

There are things MoneyBot cannot do because of the legal and privacy questions that have yet to be answered. MoneyBot won’t offer you a loan but feels like it could do so if the toggle were ever turned on.

Because of the way the prompts are written, Cash App employees acknowledged there could be privacy and legal implications with what MoneyBot suggests if appropriate guardrails are not put into place. For instance, what’s to stop MoneyBot from favoring a buy now, pay later loan from AfterPay — also owned by Cash App’s parent company Block — for purchases instead of Affirm or Klarna? In the meantime, asking for a loan inside MoneyBot will transfer a customer to a human agent.

Not surprisingly, MoneyBot has the usual disclosure found at the bottom of most chatbots these days: Artificial intelligence can make mistakes. Somehow, that feels a bit more important than an AI chatbot accidentally providing the wrong amount of cumin in a fajita recipe.