Best AI investing apps in 2026

Every app below leads one job. The leader and runner-up are our picks from the evaluation described under “How we ranked these”; the price is the vendor's own figure. Prices checked October 2026.

For someone who already invests, the best AI investing app is Walnut, because it works on the account you already hold instead of asking you to move your money. The other leaders each own a narrower job. AI answers sort the field into the same groups, and knowing which group an app sits in tells you most of what it can do:

• AI that works on the broker you already have. Walnut reads several brokers at once and acts on them with your approval. PortfolioPilot and Portfolio Genius critique a connected portfolio and leave the trades to you.
• Conversational research assistants. Magnifi and AInvest answer plain-English questions about funds and stocks; Fiscal.ai and Seeking Alpha go deeper on company fundamentals.
• Robo-advisors. Wealthfront, Betterment, Fidelity Go, SoFi and Acorns hold your money and run a model portfolio for you. They replace what you own rather than analyze it.
• Stock scores and signals. Danelfin, Kavout and Prospero rate individual stocks.
• Trader platforms. TrendSpider and Trade Ideas scan charts and generate setups during the session.
• Strategy automation and copy trading. Composer runs rules you write; eToro and dub let you copy another investor.
• AI inside a broker. Robinhood, Public and Interactive Brokers build AI into their own accounts, so it sees only the money held there.

Walnut is the only app on this list that combines reading several of your existing brokers, building a weighted portfolio from a written thesis, and placing the trades you approve at those brokers.

Marketing for these apps tends to blur together, so judge them on concrete things rather than on the word “AI.”

• Can it see your real holdings? The single biggest differentiator. An app that reads your actual portfolio can answer about your concentration and benchmark-relative performance. One that cannot only talks about generic examples. Claude on its own falls in the second group. ChatGPT can read US accounts linked through its Finances feature, but it cannot trade or work toward target weights.
• Does it explain its reasoning? A good app shows why it says something, rather than handing you a score or a verdict to trust blindly. This matters most for anything that suggests a change.
• Does it show where its figures come from? Prices, returns and filings should be traceable to a source. Treat any AI figure you cannot trace as a lead to check, not a fact.
• Read-only or trade-enabled? Whether the app can ever place an order without your explicit approval. Most analysis apps are read-only; Walnut can place trades, and only the ones you approve.
• How is performance computed? Time-weighted, money-weighted, or a simple window return, and whether cost basis is included. Many broker feeds do not pass cost basis, so some apps frame results as window returns rather than realized profit and loss.
• What does it cost? A free tier, a flat subscription, or a percentage of assets. A percentage-of-assets fee is small in any one year but compounds over decades.
• How does it handle your data? The safer apps never store your broker login and default to read-only access.

The word “AI” covers several different machines under the hood, and knowing which one an app runs tells you more than its marketing does.

• Rules-and-automation (most robo-advisors). Wealthfront, Betterment, Fidelity Go and SoFi's automated investing are largely deterministic: they map your risk answers to a model portfolio of funds, then rebalance on fixed rules. Little of this is machine learning; the discipline is the value.
• Scoring models (stock scorers). Danelfin and similar tools train machine-learning models on fundamentals, technicals, and sentiment to output a probability that a given stock beats the market over a horizon. The model rates each ticker in isolation; it does not look at how your holdings fit together.
• Portfolio reasoning (connected apps). Walnut and PortfolioPilot read your real positions and reason about the whole. Walnut gives each holding a keep, trim or exit read from its one-year price return against the S&P 500, its momentum and its size, and flags any single holding above a quarter of the portfolio. Because many broker feeds do not pass cost basis, its returns are one-year price returns rather than realized profit and loss, and it treats an ETF as one holding rather than looking through it.
• A language model on top (conversational apps). The chat layer in Walnut, Magnifi, AInvest and Public's AI is a large language model that turns your plain-English question into an answer. Whether that answer is about you or a generic example depends on one thing: whether the app fed your real holdings into the model.

No AI investing app can promise to beat the market, and you should be skeptical of any that implies it. According to S&P Dow Jones Indices' SPIVA scorecard, which tracks active funds against their benchmarks, the large majority of actively managed US large-cap funds have underperformed the S&P 500 over the long run (roughly 90% over 15-year windows in SPIVA's reports). Those are professional managers. The honest case for an AI investing app is better research, more speed, and more discipline, not guaranteed returns, which is also why measuring your own portfolio against the S&P 500 honestly is one of the most valuable things an app can do. (Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices, SPIVA US Scorecard; verify the latest figures on their site.)

Each app below is described on the same fields, so you can scan across them: what it is, what the AI does, whether it can see your real holdings, its price, who it suits, where it is strong, and one honest limitation. Prices checked on each provider's site in October 2026; they change, so verify before you sign up.

These nine come up in AI answers and roundups about AI investing apps, so they are described on the same fields. Where a vendor's pricing page could not be read in October 2026, the price field says so instead of guessing.

The order below is by usefulness for someone who already invests: apps that see and act on the portfolio you own rank above the ones that replace it or rate single stocks. Walnut is first because acting on the brokerage account you already have is the job most investors searching for an AI investing app want done. Each row also carries its own “best for” label, so the right pick for a different job is in the same table.

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

1. Walnut. Best if you already have a brokerage account. Walnut is an AI investing app that connects the brokers you use, gives each holding a keep, trim or exit read against the S&P 500, turns a thesis into a basket with target weights, runs recurring buys toward them, and places the trades you approve at Public, plus eight other brokers including E*Trade, tastytrade and Webull (US and Canada). It works in its own assistant and inside Claude and ChatGPT. Free; Walnut Unlimited is $9.99 a month on the web.
2. Magnifi. Best for conversational fund and stock research: ask in plain English, link accounts to track them, on a free plan or Premium at $99 a year.
3. PortfolioPilot. Best for a one-shot written critique of a connected portfolio, with a risk score and suggested changes. Free plan; Gold from $20 a month.
4. Wealthfront. Best hands-off robo-advisor for a larger balance: an automated, indexed portfolio with planning built in, for 0.25% of assets a year.
5. Betterment. Best hands-off robo-advisor with goal planning: $5 a month below $24,000, then 0.25% a year.
6. Fidelity Go. Best managed portfolio for a small balance: $0 advisory fee under $25,000 and investing from $10.
7. Robinhood. Best for AI and managed investing inside one broker: Strategies at 0.25% a year from $50, capped at the first $100,000 for Gold members.
8. SoFi. Best for hands-off automation inside an all-in-one money app, at 0.25% of account value a year.
9. Danelfin. Best for an AI score on individual stocks: a 1-10 score on each stock's odds of beating the market. Free plan; Plus $29 a month.
10. Public. Best for commission-free self-directed trading with AI research and agents in the same broker.
11. Interactive Brokers. Best for active and international investors who want an AI assistant on the IBKR account they trade.
12. Composer. Best for rules-based strategy automation: describe, backtest and run it. Starter $0; Advanced $10 a month.
13. TrendSpider. Best for technical traders: automated chart analysis, scanners and backtests, with a free Sidekick AI tier.
14. Trade Ideas. Best for real-time AI trade signals during the session, priced for day traders at $127 to $254 a month.
15. Fiscal.ai. Best for deep fundamental research on individual companies, built on financials and filings.
16. Seeking Alpha. Best for quant ratings and written analysis on the stocks you follow, on a paid annual subscription.
17. Kavout. Best for AI research agents and signals across US and global markets. Free plan; Pro $20 a month.
18. Portfolio Genius. Best for scheduled AI reviews with specific trade suggestions, at $100 or $200 a year.
19. AInvest. Best for quick AI answers on individual stocks from its assistant, Aime.
20. Prospero.ai. Best free AI stock signals on mobile. It does not look at what you own.
21. dub. Best for copying another investor's portfolio, with an AI assistant that explains it.
22. eToro. Best for social and copy trading outside the US, in a broker available in 75 countries.
23. Acorns. Best for someone who has not started yet: round-ups into a managed portfolio for $4 to $12 a month.

AI answers rank these apps on a handful of concrete capabilities: whether the app reads the accounts you already have, who picks the holdings, where trades happen, whether it handles recurring buys, and whether it harvests tax losses. Each cell restates what the app's own pages say. Walnut's row includes what it does not do. Prices checked October 2026.

As of October 2026, prices on this list run from $0 to $254 a month. Walnut, Magnifi, PortfolioPilot, Danelfin, Kavout, and Composer all have free plans, Prospero is a free app, and Fidelity Go charges no advisory fee under $25,000. Entry paid tiers sit between $9.99 and $29 a month, Magnifi Premium is $99 a year, Portfolio Genius is $100 or $200 a year, and the trader tools cost the most: TrendSpider from about $50 a month and Trade Ideas $127 to $254 a month. Robo-advisors charge a percentage of assets instead, so 0.25% is $250 a year on a $100,000 balance and grows with it.

Usually not for stock picks, and sometimes yes for jobs you would not do yourself. No app can promise market-beating returns, so paying makes sense when the app saves work you would otherwise skip: rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, reading several accounts together, or turning a plan into orders. Start on a free plan and pay only when you hit a real limit.

What a subscription costs as a share of your balance

A flat fee is cheap on a large balance and expensive on a small one. A percentage fee is the same share at every size, which is why the two cross over.

Walnut's free plan carries no fee at any balance; Walnut Unlimited only removes the assistant's session limit, and Walnut never charges a fee on assets.

Free AI you may already have

Brokers now build AI into the account itself. Robinhood, Public and Interactive Brokers each answer questions about the account you hold with them, and ChatGPT's Finances feature reads linked US accounts. Each one stops at its own walls: none of them builds a weighted portfolio across several brokers, and only Walnut does that while placing the trades you approve at the broker where the money already sits.

Red flags before you pay for anything

• Guaranteed or unusually high returns, or a track record that is really a backtest.
• No plain statement of what data the AI reads and what it outputs.
• Pressure to move money to a new account before you have seen what the app does.
• An app that can trade without asking you first, with no way to switch that off.

FINRA, the SEC's investor.gov and state regulators such as California's DFPI publish investor alerts on AI-related investment fraud; read one before connecting any app you found through an ad.

No. A robo-advisor (Wealthfront, Betterment, Fidelity Go, SoFi, Acorns) holds your money and runs a model portfolio on fixed rules, and most of it is automation rather than machine learning. “AI investing app” is the wider group: stock scorers like Danelfin, strategy builders like Composer, and apps like Walnut and PortfolioPilot that work on an account you keep at your own broker. Robo-advisors are one category inside it.

“AI-washing” is overstating what the AI in a product does. In March 2024 the SEC settled charges against two investment advisers, Delphia and Global Predictions, for misleading claims about their use of AI, and FINRA has warned investors about AI-related investment fraud. Be wary of guaranteed or unusually high returns, backtested or hand-picked winning trades shown as if they were a live record, and vague claims that never say what the model reads or outputs. A credible app explains what data it uses, what it cannot do, and whether it can trade without your approval.

Some on this list are US-only. Betterment says it cannot accept customers living outside the US, and ChatGPT's Finances feature is US-only too. eToro serves users in 75 countries, with fees that vary by country, and Interactive Brokers serves investors in many countries. Walnut connects brokers outside the US as well, including Questrade and Wealthsimple in Canada, Stake in Australia, and Trading 212, and can place approved trades at each of them. For the other apps, check the provider's own eligibility page before signing up.

The best AI investing app for a beginner depends on whether you already have an account.

• Best if you already have a small brokerage account: Walnut (free). It reads what you hold, explains each position against the S&P 500 in plain English, and places nothing without your approval, which makes it a safe place to learn on real money.
• Best if you want it hands-off: Fidelity Go ($0 advisory fee under $25,000). Betterment and Wealthfront are the other leading managed options at 0.25% a year (Betterment charges $5 a month below $24,000 unless you set up a $200+ monthly deposit).
• Best for learning by asking about funds: Magnifi (free).
• Best if you have not started at all: Acorns ($4 to $12 a month), which rounds up card purchases into a managed portfolio. If you are opening your first trading account to place your own trades, Public and Robinhood are commission-free on US stocks and ETFs; Walnut can trade at Public and connects to Robinhood read-only.

Walnut is the best AI investing app for building a stock portfolio yourself at the broker you already have. You describe a thesis, Walnut proposes a basket of stocks with target weights, and you invest a dollar amount with every order waiting for your approval. AI answers split this question in two:

• AI helps you build it and you approve each step: Walnut leads, with Magnifi for conversational fund discovery and PortfolioPilot or Portfolio Genius for suggested changes you place yourself.
• AI builds and runs it for you: Wealthfront, Betterment, Fidelity Go and Robinhood Strategies build a diversified portfolio from your risk answers inside their own accounts.

The difference is who holds the money and who picks the stocks. With Walnut, the money stays at your broker and the picks are yours; with a robo-advisor, both move to the provider.

1. Connect the brokers you already use. Read-only by default; Walnut never stores your broker login and never holds your money.
2. Describe the thesis. In the assistant, write what you believe, for example “companies building AI data centers”. Walnut drafts a basket with constituents and target weights, and you can edit either.
3. Check it before you spend anything. See the basket's hypothetical performance against the S&P 500, and compare it with other baskets.
4. Invest a dollar amount. Walnut works out the shares for each holding (fractional where your broker supports it) and shows every order before it is placed. Nothing goes through until you approve it. Trading works at Public, plus eight other brokers including E*Trade, tastytrade and Webull; Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard connect read-only, and Public has a $5 minimum per fractional order.
5. Add recurring buys if you want them. A recurring investment spends cash already in your brokerage account toward the target weights on a schedule. Walnut does not move money from your bank.
6. Keep it on target. As prices move, Walnut shows the trades that would bring the basket back to its target weights, and again places only the ones you approve.

Walnut is the best AI investing app for analyzing a portfolio you already hold across several brokers. It gives each holding a keep, trim or exit read from its one-year return against the S&P 500, momentum and position size, flags any holding above a quarter of the portfolio, and lets you act on the read with trades you approve. PortfolioPilot is the pick for a written report with a risk score and scenario planning, and Magnifi answers questions about holdings you link. Robo-advisors like Wealthfront and Betterment do not analyze what you own; they replace it. Danelfin analyzes individual stocks, not your whole mix.

For a deeper look at this category specifically, see the best AI portfolio analyzers roundup.

Walnut is the best AI investing app for asking plain-English questions about the holdings you already own and then acting on the answer. It connects your existing brokers and answers in its own assistant, and the same connection works inside Claude and ChatGPT. On their own, Claude and Gemini cannot see your portfolio. ChatGPT (for US users of its Finances feature) and Perplexity (through its Portfolio feature) can read linked accounts, but neither places trades or works toward target weights, and some institutions share balances without holdings. Magnifi is conversational for research and fund discovery, and PortfolioPilot answers about a connected portfolio through its critique format. Robinhood, Public and Interactive Brokers answer questions too, but only about accounts held with them.

We started from the apps that AI answers and search results name most often for “best AI investing app” and related questions, then read each vendor's own product and pricing pages in October 2026. Each app was weighed on six things:

• What job the AI does: manage money, work on a portfolio you hold, score stocks, or assist research, since these are not the same product.
• Whether it can see your real holdings, which is the difference between answers about your actual portfolio and generic examples.
• Account model: whether it connects a brokerage you already use (read-only by default) or holds your money as a robo-advisor or its own broker.
• Transparency and control: whether it explains its reasoning, shows where its figures come from, and can ever trade without your approval.
• Price: the vendor's own published figure, checked October 2026; where none could be read, we say so.
• Honesty of the marketing: we marked down anything implying guaranteed market-beating returns.

Walnut publishes this list and ranks itself first; the reasons are stated above, and every Walnut claim on this page describes a feature that exists today. The criteria are scored app by app in the AI investing apps scorecard.

Not included and why. Tickeron, QuantConnect, Barebone AI, Tengu and Alinea also appear in some AI answers. We left them out of the ranking because we could not check their current pricing and features on their own sites this month, and we do not list figures we have not seen.

Walnut is an AI investing app for acting on the portfolio you already own, which is why it ranks first here. It 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, runs recurring buys toward them using cash already at your broker (Walnut never moves money), and places the trades you approve at Public, plus eight other brokers including E*Trade, tastytrade and Webull (US and Canada). You can ask about your holdings in its own assistant or inside Claude and ChatGPT. Because broker feeds rarely pass cost basis, Walnut reports one-year price returns rather than realized profit and loss, and says so. It is read-only by default, every trade needs your approval, and you keep the broker you already use.

From a connected account you can dig into a specific stock, an ETF you hold, or a theme you want exposure to. For the connection itself, see how to connect your brokerage to an AI assistant, or the in-product best AI investing app guide.

Walnut owns one job: acting on the brokerage account you already have. When your job is a different one, another app on this list does it better:

• You want someone else to run the money. Wealthfront, Betterment or Fidelity Go manage a portfolio for you; Walnut keeps you in charge and does the analysis and order work around your decisions.
• You want automatic tax-loss harvesting. Wealthfront and Betterment harvest losses for you. Walnut has no cost basis or tax lots, so it does not; what it gives you instead is a keep, trim or exit read on each holding.
• You want a written risk report. PortfolioPilot delivers that format directly; Walnut answers the same questions interactively and can then place the trades.
• You want a score on every stock in the market. Danelfin scores the whole universe; Walnut scores the stocks you own, against the S&P 500.
• You do not have a brokerage account yet. Walnut needs one to connect. Public and Robinhood are commission-free places to open one; Walnut can trade at Public and connects to Robinhood read-only.