Wealthsimple's AI assistant Penny acts only with client approval

Wealthsimple, a Toronto firm offering chequing, investing and tax filing, unveiled an AI assistant, Penny, on November 5. Penny works only inside Wealthsimple’s platform, the company said, and acts only when clients confirm. Its launch date has not been announced.

CP24 reported that Wealthsimple says clients will be able, by early 2027, to connect accounts to tools such as ChatGPT or Claude, at access levels they set. One route to such access is screen scraping: about nine million Canadians share financial data by handing over confidential banking credentials, the Canada Gazette said. Wealthsimple does not favour that route: Jordan Deutsch, a director of software development, said the company does not advocate sharing primary credentials and wants safe direct connections for AI agents instead. The Consumer-Driven Banking Act, which received royal assent in March 2026, includes a prohibition on screen scraping, but its regulations are still only proposed.

Nine days earlier, on October 27, Wealthsimple announced an equity round of up to $425 million. That values the company at $13.8 billion, up from $10 billion when it raised $750 million in October 2025.

Map: Massey Hall, Toronto. © OpenStreetMap contributors

Sources: Wealthsimple · iPhone in Canada · CP24 · Canada Gazette (Department of Finance Canada)