Revolut debuts an AI banking agent

Revolut is trying to turn a banking app into a chat window. On April 9, 2026, it began rolling out AIR, short for AI by Revolut, to its 13 million customers in the United Kingdom, so users can ask for things like card controls or spending breakdowns instead of tapping through menus. (revolut.com) AIR sits inside the Revolut app and opens with a swipe down from the middle of the home screen or through Profile, then Chats, then AIR. Revolut says the assistant can handle subscription management, investment tracking, trip budgeting, and freezing a lost card from the same conversation thread. (revolut.com) That sounds small until you remember what most banking apps still look like. A simple job like checking recurring charges, locking a card, and reviewing last month’s travel spending usually means bouncing across three or four screens, and Revolut is betting people would rather type one sentence. (revolut.com) Revolut has been building toward this for more than a year. At its November 22, 2024 product event in London, the company said an artificial intelligence assistant would become a “financial companion” inside the app and would roll out gradually in 2025. (revolut.com) The company is not presenting AIR as a free-roaming bot that can move money anywhere it wants. Revolut’s own product pages describe it as an in-app assistant that works with data the customer can already see, including transactions, investments, and cards, and the legal disclaimer says investment decisions still belong to the user. (revolut.com 1) (revolut.com 2) That limitation matters because “autonomous payments” in banking are a much riskier promise than “answer my question.” Freezing a card or surfacing a subscription is reversible; sending money to the wrong place is not, which is why banks are starting with tightly bounded actions inside their own apps. (thepaypers.com) (revolut.com) Revolut is also leaning hard on privacy language. It says AIR uses the same protections as the rest of the app, only accesses information already visible to the customer, and applies a zero-data-retention policy so personal information is not stored by third-party artificial intelligence partners or used to train external models. (revolut.com) (uktech.news) This is happening as finance companies start designing products for software agents, not just humans with thumbs. On April 11, 2026, Meow Technologies launched what it called an “agentic banking platform” for artificial intelligence agents, with business accounts, cards, and payment tools built for automated workflows. (thenextweb.com) So AIR is less about a smarter chatbot than about changing the front door of banking. If customers get used to saying “show me my subscriptions,” “freeze that card,” or “set a holiday budget” in plain English, the menu-based bank app starts to look like the old interface. (revolut.com) (fintechweekly.com)