Budgeting apps are fine if you want to know what you spend last month. And most people quit using them after a few months because they just tell you what you already know – you spent too much last month. There’s a new breed of budgeting apps, powered by AI, that can give you insights into your spending and how you can save more money before you blow through your budget. And these are apps that use AI in a smart way, not a marketing gimmick where they slap “AI” on everything. I’ll explain how the introduction of AI makes it a more powerful tool than before. Short on time? Here’s the summar:y Monarch Money – best for couples and AI auto-categorizes transactions, detect recurring bills and subscriptions (so you can cancel it) and surfaces spending trends. Origin – best all-in-one that includes budgeting and investing, the AI Sidekick can build a personalized budget that can answer questions you have and forecast for big events. Try it for $1 the first year. Boldin – a retirement planning powerhouse that uses an AI Assistant planner that you can ask questions as if it were a financial coach. YNAB – uses AI to help categorization, which isn’t mind-blowing, but we include it because YNAB is such a powerful behavior change budgeting tool that we couldn’t exclude it even if the AI features were light. Rocket Money – AI will find your recurring expenses and subscriptions and can cancel some of them directly in the app, quick bang for your buck in terms of savings Cleo – It’s a chatbot AI that sits on top of your financial data, so you can ask it questions, and it’s the only tool in the list with a free tier Empower – Most well known for their dashboard and the AI helps analyzing your spending and budgeting habits and can provide financial guidance. Table of Contents1. Monarch Money – best for couples2. Origin – best all-in-one (budget + invest + plan)3. Boldin – best for long-term and retirement planning4. YNAB – best for getting serious about saving and debt5. Rocket Money – best for killing forgotten subscriptions6. Cleo – best free pick for people who avoid their finances7. Empower – best free option overall 1. Monarch Money – best for couples Monarch is the closest thing to a true Mint replacement: clean dashboard, budgets, net worth tracking, and investment monitoring, built for two people to share. What the AI does: It auto-categorizes transactions, detects recurring bills and subscriptions, and surfaces spending trends across both partners’ accounts. Why that beats a non-AI app: Manual envelope apps fall apart for couples because both people have to tag everything or the budget drifts out of sync. Monarch’s automation keeps a shared household budget reconciled on its own, so the picture stays accurate without nightly data-entry chores. Best for: Couples and households budgeting jointly Price: Around $99.99/year, get 50% the first year with code SMARTMONEY