Best AI Investing Apps in 2026

1. Walnut (Free; Walnut Unlimited $9.99/mo (web)). Best AI investing app for the brokerage account you already have: connects your existing brokers, gives each holding a keep, trim or exit read against the S&P 500, turns a thesis into a basket with target weights, and places the trades you approve. Use its own assistant or ask inside Claude and ChatGPT.
2. Magnifi (Free plan; Premium $99 a year). Best for conversational fund and stock research: ask plain-English questions about funds and stocks, with linked accounts to track them.
3. PortfolioPilot (Free plan; Gold from $20 a month). Best for a one-off AI critique of a connected portfolio: links your accounts and returns a whole-portfolio review with a risk score and suggested changes.
4. Wealthfront (0.25% of assets a year). Best hands-off robo-advisor with planning tools: an automated, indexed portfolio with tax-loss harvesting and planning built in. Your money moves to Wealthfront.
5. Betterment ($5 a month under $24,000, or 0.25% a year). Best hands-off robo-advisor for goal-based saving: builds and manages a diversified portfolio for you, with goal planning and tax features.
6. SoFi (Automated investing 0.25% a year). Best robo inside an all-in-one money app: automated investing next to banking, loans and self-directed trading.
7. Danelfin (Free plan; Plus from $22 a month). Best for AI stock scores: gives every stock an explainable 1-10 AI score to weigh in your own research.
8. Public (Commission-free stock trading). Best brokerage with AI agents built in: a self-directed brokerage that calls itself agentic, with a research assistant, market briefings and earnings summaries in the app.
9. Composer (Starter $0; Advanced $10 a month). Best for no-code strategy automation: describe a strategy to its AI, backtest it, and let it run in Composer's own account.
10. Trade Ideas ($127 to $254 a month). Best real-time AI scanner for day traders: real-time AI scanning and trade signals for active day and swing traders.
11. Kavout (Free plan; Pro $20 a month). Best for AI research agents across global markets: AI research agents, stock pickers and signals across US and global markets.
12. Prospero.ai (Free app). Best free AI stock signals: free daily AI stock picks and signals on mobile, as one research input.
13. eToro ($0 stock commission in the US). Best for social and copy trading: a social investing broker in 75 countries, built around copy trading and a $100K demo account.
14. Acorns ($4 to $12 a month). Best for investing spare change: round-ups that invest spare change into a managed portfolio, for people who have not started yet.
15. TrendSpider (Paid plans only). Best AI charting for technical traders: automated chart-pattern and trendline detection with an AI assistant, priced for people who trade often.
16. Robinhood (Commission-free; Gold $5 a month adds Cortex). Best AI research inside a commission-free broker: Cortex turns market data into insights inside the Robinhood app, and Robinhood also runs AI agents on its own accounts.
17. Interactive Brokers ($0 US stock commissions with IBKR Lite). Best AI assistant inside a full-featured global broker: Ask IBKR answers questions about your own IBKR account inside the platform.
18. RockFlow (Free app; start from $1). Best all-in-one AI mobile trading app: bundles discovery, research and trading in one mobile app.

Prices checked on each provider's own site in October 2026; they change, so verify before you sign up.

The ranking weighs what the AI contributes, whether the app can see your real account, control and cost; the methodology is below. ChatGPT Finances can now read a linked US account, but to act on the portfolio you actually own, with target weights and trades you approve, Walnut is the purpose-built option.

Walnut is the lowest-cost AI investing app here: $0 to use, no fee on assets, and no commission from Walnut, with an optional Walnut Unlimited plan at $9.99 a month on the web for unlimited assistant sessions. The full list, cheapest first:

Prices checked October 2026. Your broker's own trading costs and fund expense ratios sit on top of any app fee. For a balance under a few thousand dollars, see the small-account comparison table.

For an investor who already has a broker, Walnut gives the most for the money: it is free, reads your real holdings, gives each one a keep, trim or exit read against the S&P 500, and places trades you approve. For hands-off investing, Wealthfront (0.25% a year). For research, Magnifi (free, or $99 a year). For active traders, Trade Ideas (from $127 a month) or TrendSpider, which only make sense if you trade often.

What each app costs a year at three balances

A flat fee is a large share of a small balance and a tiny share of a large one; a percentage fee grows with you. Acorns at $4 a month is 4.8% a year on $1,000. Wealthfront at 0.25% is $25 a year on $10,000.

Annual cost, as of October 2026. Betterment's $5 a month applies under $24,000 unless you deposit $200 or more a month.

What each app actually does

Only the robo-advisors (Wealthfront, Betterment) harvest tax losses automatically. Walnut does not see cost basis or tax lots, so its reads use one-year price returns, not your profit and loss.

Best value by investor type

• You already have a brokerage account: Walnut, free.
• You want it fully automated: Fidelity Go under $25,000 ($0), Wealthfront above it (0.25%).
• You are just starting and need an account: Public or Robinhood, both commission-free with AI built in, connected to Walnut (Robinhood read-only).
• You pick your own stocks: Danelfin's free plan for scores, Walnut for what you already hold.
• You trade during the session: Trade Ideas or TrendSpider, if the subscription is a small share of your account.

Whether a paid tier is worth it at all is its own question; the worth-paying-for breakdown works through it by job.

Walnut. Most apps described as AI investing apps expect you to move your money to them: Betterment, Wealthfront, SoFi and Acorns are all brokerages in their own right, and Magnifi runs its own account too. If you already have a brokerage account and want to keep it, that rules out most of the category before you start comparing features.

The apps that connect to an account you already hold are a much shorter list. Walnut connects the brokerages you already have, answers questions about your real holdings in its own assistant or inside Claude and ChatGPT, and acts on them: baskets with target weights, recurring investments from cash already at your broker, and trades you approve. PortfolioPilot links your accounts and returns an AI critique and a portfolio score. Mezzi and Empower track linked accounts with lighter AI on top.

The distinction that matters is the account model, not the AI. An app that holds your money can act on it without asking. An app that connects to your existing broker can only read what you own until you approve something, which is the model to compare if moving brokerages is off the table.

Picking the right category matters more than picking the right product within it.

• AI investing apps for the broker you already have (Walnut, PortfolioPilot, Mezzi) connect your existing account. You keep your broker and ask about your real holdings instead of handing your money to an automated model. Walnut is the one in this group that also places the trades you approve.
• Robo-advisors (Wealthfront, Betterment, SoFi, Fidelity Go) build and manage a diversified portfolio for you automatically. You move money in and stop thinking about it.
• AI research assistants and stock scores (Magnifi, Danelfin, Kavout, Prospero) answer research questions or rate individual stocks. You act on the output elsewhere.
• Trader platforms and strategy automation (Trade Ideas, TrendSpider, Composer) scan markets in real time or run rules-based strategies you build without code.
• AI inside a broker (Public, Robinhood, Interactive Brokers, eToro) builds assistants, agents or social trading into the app that holds your money, limited to that broker's accounts.

The category is noisy because “AI” sells. A useful checklist when comparing apps:

• What the AI actually does. Picks stocks, optimizes a portfolio, automates trades, or just answers questions. These are very different products.
• Whether it connects your real brokerage, or makes you move money into a new account. If the AI cannot see your real positions, it cannot give a useful answer about your portfolio.
• Read-only vs trade-enabled, and whether it can ever place orders without your approval.
• Cost: a free tier, a flat subscription, or a percentage of assets. Over decades, a percentage fee compounds into real money.
• Whether it shows its reasoning, not just an output you have to trust blindly.
• Honest disclosures. Informational analysis is fine; auto-claiming “investment advice” without registration is not.

Prices checked on each provider's own site in October 2026; they change, so verify before you sign up. Rows follow the ranking above, then every other app we track.

We grouped the field by what the AI actually does, then ranked across groups on five criteria:

• What the AI contributes, and whether it shows its reasoning or just hands you an output.
• Account model: whether the tool connects your existing brokerage or holds your money itself.
• Access and control: read-only versus trade-enabled, and what gates any order.
• Cost structure, including how a percentage-of-assets fee compounds versus a flat subscription.
• Honesty of the marketing: we marked down tools that imply guaranteed market-beating returns, because no tool can promise that.

What we checked: each provider's own pricing and product pages, read on October 4 and October 16, 2026. Where a provider's page was blocked or showed only promotional pricing (Schwab, TrendSpider, Public's premium tier), we describe the price without a number rather than guess. Account ownership decides the top of the list: an app that works on the account you already hold ranks above one that asks you to move money, because most people asking this already invest somewhere.

Not included in the ranking, and why

• Empower, Kubera and Monarch: net-worth trackers first, with little AI on the investing side. Empower appears in the table above.
• Alpaca and QuantConnect: developer tools for building your own agent or algorithm, not apps.
• ChatGPT and Claude on their own: general assistants. Claude cannot see your holdings without a connector, and ChatGPT Finances reads but cannot trade.
• AI ETFs: funds, not apps; see the AI ETF pages for those.

The fastest way to narrow it down is to match the tool to how you actually want to invest.

• You want to keep your broker and act on your real holdings. Walnut connects your account, works in its own assistant or through Claude and ChatGPT, and places the trades you approve. See how to connect your brokerage to an AI assistant and how to analyze your portfolio with AI.
• You want to never think about it. A robo-advisor (Betterment, Wealthfront, SoFi, or Acorns) builds and manages a portfolio automatically. If you like the automation but want more say, see the AI robo-advisor alternatives.
• You want a familiar brokerage with the AI built in. Public and Robinhood both build AI into the app that holds your money, and both connect to Walnut (Public for trading, Robinhood read-only). See which brokers have an AI assistant.
• You are a beginner who wants to learn. Walnut explains each holding as you ask, on the brokerage you already have; Magnifi suits open-ended research questions.
• You research your own stocks and want a quantitative edge. Danelfin, Kavout, or Trade Ideas give you AI scores and signals to weigh; pair them with your own judgment and how to analyze a stock with AI.
• You want rules-based automation. Composer lets you build and run strategies without code.
• You want a one-off second opinion. PortfolioPilot and Mezzi connect your accounts and critique them; compare the AI portfolio analyzers.
• You write code. Alpaca or Interactive Brokers give you programmatic, agent-ready access.

To be upfront, since this is our site: Walnut is an AI investing app built around one idea, that the AI should know your portfolio. It talks to the broker you already have, answers in plain English about your actual holdings, and places only the trades you approve. Here is how it works.

1. Pick how you want to talk to it

Walnut has its own AI assistant (no setup required), and you can also add Walnut as a connector in Claude or ChatGPT. The connector only reads your portfolio, and there is no API key to paste.

2. Build portfolios in conversation

Describe your thesis (“AI infrastructure”, “clean energy”, “off-price retail”). The AI researches relevant stocks, proposes target weights summing to 100, and creates the basket. You can add a recurring investment that spends cash already in your brokerage account on a schedule.

3. Connect a real broker

Walnut connects your brokerage through a regulated broker integration, so your credentials never touch Walnut. 33 brokers are supported for reading, including Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard, which stay read-only. Trades you approve go through at Public, and at E*Trade, tastytrade, Webull (US and Canada), moomoo, Questrade, Wealthsimple, Trading 212 and Stake (Australia). It is read-only by default, and every order requires your approval.

Here is when something else fits better, and what Walnut does instead:

• You want fully hands-off automation. Walnut asks before every trade by design, so a robo-advisor fits a set-and-forget saver better. Walnut is the pick for people who want the AI to draft the trades and keep the final say.
• You want scores on every stock in the market. Danelfin or Kavout are built for that. Walnut does not score the whole market, but it gives each stock you already own a keep, trim or exit read against the S&P 500.
• You want tax-loss harvesting. Wealthfront and Betterment do it automatically. Walnut has no cost basis or tax lots; it reads one-year price returns, momentum and position size, and flags any holding above a quarter of the portfolio.
• You do not want to connect a brokerage. Walnut sits on top of your existing account, so it needs one.

• Treating AI output as predictions. A model saying “NVDA could go to $200” is not a forecast. Use AI for synthesis, not crystal-ball calls.
• Picking an app that can't see your real holdings. Without brokerage connectivity, you are stuck pasting positions into chat windows.
• Forgetting position sizing. A theme can be right and your sizing still wrong. Target weights matter as much as picks.
• Ignoring a flat fee on a small balance. $12 a month on $1,000 is 14.4% a year before any return.
• Skipping the disclosures. “Not investment advice” framing matters; it tells you what kind of tool you are using.

For the apps scored side by side on what each one does with your holdings, read the best AI investing apps, which ranks Walnut, Magnifi, PortfolioPilot, Wealthfront and Betterment in the same order as this guide.