EXCLUSIVE – Add another financial wellness app to the list, millennials.  Douugh, a fintech company that uses artificial intelligence (AI)-based to provide financial guidance, launches today.

The AI-based platform is guided by Sophie, a 24/7 personal assistant for finances.

“Sophie is not an robo- advisor,”  Andy Taylor, CEO of Douugh told Bank Innovation. “Think of her more as a financial coach.”

Unlike a robo-advisor, Sophie will not be making any investment-related recommendations. Instead, Sophie will analyze the user’s spending habits and guide them to better improve their financial health, Taylor explained. The user is required to allow Douugh access to their existing bank accounts and credit cards.

Right now, the company is in the pilot phase, which Taylor describes as “read-only phase” in which we are gathering information and analyzing it in preparation for  bigger plans.

Those bigger plans include launching Douugh’s own debit card and smart account through which users can make transactions such as paying, requesting money, automatically saving, tracking and management of spending and savings goals through Douugh’s checking account and debit card.

The next phase for Douugh is to partner with bank for a banking charter to establish its smart account, Taylor said.

The ultimate goal for Douugh, however, is to establish itself as a financial control center for users. Once the app is fully operational, Taylor said that Douugh will seek partnerships with fintech companies that focus on different aspects of a customer’s finances like Robinhood, Acorn, among others.

“The future of banking is about platform, data and identity. The current societal banking model is failing to proactively educate people about money management, in part because of the legacy business model designed to keep people in a debt cycle,” said Taylor. “Our mission is to elevate the latest technology to break the cycle, and foster a healthy ecosystem by empowering customers.”

The mobile app runs on iOS and is free to download; as yet, the app is not available for Android users. The fully operational version for iOS will be launched next year.