That’s a fair point. As mentioned, we just released the goal planning feature and our websites needs an update!
Hey Sam 
Thanks for the speedy reply 
It sounds good but from the video it looks like I have to do all this manually?
I set the amount to save, I set the target date, I set the priority. The app didn’t seem to calculate anything in a “smart way” unless I’m still massively misunderstanding?
The only thing I can see is that it calculates how much you have left each month by aggregating all your spending across all of your accounts. This is what Monzo Trends does and I can set budgets and savings goals in Monzo too.
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I’m well aware of what type of products these are. At no point on the website does is mention premium accounts or what those benefits are.
Until we actually questioned this on the forum you’d made no effort to actually mention this at all.
Really need to work on your website to ensure this is included and the way you go about Comms, that way there’s no confusion.
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@Revels you think I don’t know what it means to be financially oppressed?
I grew-up under the poverty threshold with EUR 300/month in a kind of place you don’t want your kids to be. We got screwed by the banking system whenever we needed some money to repair that bloody 25 yo car that keeps breaking. The more it breaks, the less we could save for a decent car.
It’s expensive to be poor.
So I’m 100% fine with any constructive criticism. I just don’t accept disrespect.
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Point taken, thanks 
But if you want to know the full story, there is a reason we didn’t include in our website: most people didn’t read it. But maybe it’s time to reconsider!
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Yeah I’d reconsider that to be fair, not having it up front along with pricing etc, just makes it sound like there’s something to hide.
If I’m downloading an app to use, along with handing over my financial data, I at least want to know all about the app, it’s services, and in app purchases, what they unlock 
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Hey Ordog, you’re right the video shows a simple example with 1 goal. We wanted to keep it short (but it’s already 2mn long 
).
When setting multiple goals, you can easily prioritise them with drag n drop. Then their status will be immediately updated: On track / Challenging / Unrealistic.
Now that you’re mentioning it, maybe we should showcase that in a video 
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Ok I see. Thanks Dave, we’ll add a section pricing for users who like to have all the information at hands before downloading an app.
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There is definitely an inflation of the words “smart” and “AI” lately.
But financial planning is more complicated than calculating the required monthly saving (Goal amount / number of months). It also requires to assess the monthly saving capacity - which is a non-trivial problem. I’ll just give you some examples:
- irregular income
- irregular expense patterns
- being in the middle of the month where the user has spent more than usual
That’s where it requires more sophisticated techniques than just deterministic rules.
That’s understandable but I think what was said about mocking a key user group, it’s not that smart.
BTW, I tried to use your web-app and nothing loads. I get a black screen with the robot guy at the top and “I have an account” below but nothing else.
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@Revels I’m sorry if I inadvertently offended a group of user. Who do you think I mocked? (It’s a 100% genuine question).
Arg the web app is bugged, I have the same problem 
Ok, going back to dev!
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I downloaded the app earlier and gave it a try - it gives some interesting insights.
The main paint point with getting started was having to recategorise transactions so that the app’s insights were meaningful. I guess you might be learning from user’s category changes for each merchant so this will go away over time.
Also, if you have a reasonable amount of savings, the line graph in the Accounts tab is hard to read because a fairly large change in your savings is relatively small overall so it doesn’t really show up.
I do like the yearly stats for income, expenses and savings in particular.
But I’d like to be able to customise my budget each month in the track tab without necessarily setting a savings goal. My income’s variable so the amount that I could save each month might change but my budget’s fixed.
I’d also like to be able to set a set a goal in the goal tab without setting a deadline for it and see a forecast of when I’d reach that goal, based on my previous month’s savings.
I haven’t spotted anything that’d make me want to subscribe so far but I didn’t have any particular expectations when I downloaded the app either, I just liked the look of the chart in the Track tab.
By the way, if you read the other comments from some of the users in this thread then you’ll see a consistent pattern - in terms of constructive / unconstructive discussion - so I’d take their comments with a large pinch of salt.
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When you said this it reminded me of Cleo.
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Hi Alex 
You’re absolutely right, Nova needs to have good data to give relevant recommendation.
If you have managed to connect all your accounts, then you’re in the best case scenario. Nova automatically recognise your internal transfers across your accounts, credit card repayments… So reviewing the bills is usually enough.
Most of the problems come from when a bank account is not supported. Most old street banks don’t support their ISA and mortgage through Open Banking. Sometimes they don’t even support their savings account 
When some accounts are missing, then users need to categorise their transfers to/from savings account as "Personal tranfer. Or use Monzo pots 
As you guessed, Nova will learn from your recategorisation - we tried to make it as convenient as possible for users.
But you know, categorising transactions isn’t just for the AI. It also helps to have a 360 view on all your finances in order to understand your monthly cash flows, monitor the bills, and analyse your spending trends.
Also, if you have a reasonable amount of savings, the line graph in the Accounts tab is hard to read because a fairly large change in your savings is relatively small overall so it doesn’t really show up.
In the Accounts tab, can you try to tap on the top right icon (Manage Accounts) to toggle off the savings accounts with a large balance? Let me know if it solves the problem.
I’d also like to be able to set a set a goal in the goal tab without setting a deadline for it and see a forecast of when I’d reach that goal, based on my previous month’s savings.
I take note that you want custom budget, it will be in our roadmap
To set goals without a deadline, you can chose the option “Tell me when I can afford it” and Nova will recommend you a date.
Speaking of the FAQ, I’d probably reword the question RE anonymity. I think you’re misconstruing what anonymous actually means here, and what you really mean to say is private.
Ok this FAQ really needs an update . But I actually meant anonymous. We don’t ask people’s real name and don’t require to verify their identity.
Thank you very much for your feedback and support - I appreciate 
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Replying to this specifically.
It’s like having a paid version of an app vs an unpaid, AIs are opinionated pieces of software created by a programer.
You could do something like this:
- Free version
Decision trees trained over a small dataset
And then for paid, you could do:
- Paid version
Deep neural network trained over a much larger dataset
There are many ways to mix & match AIs, and you can have multiple different AIs which aim to solve the same problem but perform differently (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y for AlphaGo, Deepmind has multiple “models” all trained to be amazing at Go but each performs differently and is different from the other) 
The easiest way to achieve an “upgrade for £2 to get better AI” is similar to upgrading the specs on your PC, you could just use more data
Why would you want to make one model paid?
AI costs money to run and build, some AI models cost more than others to execute depending on a myriad of factors.
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Fortunately I only use Monzo so I have all of the data I need for the app.
Great!
I could do this but I’d like to see my progress towards my savings goal which includes that account’s balance. Maybe not starting the Y axis legend from 0 would work instead?
Great!
I did try this but ultimately the app still sets a deadline, I’d like to not set a deadline at all and then
One other thing I forgot to mention, I couldn’t figure out how the levels are calculated in the profile tab?
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Hi Tom,
AI does make product sound more interesting. But it also helps users to understand what they get. For example when I tested the first prototype of Nova, people were confused to see recommended dates. But when introducing Nova as an AI, people expect the app the app to crunch all their numbers and come up with a recommendation - hopefully smart. So the term AI fits their mental model, and they also understand that the recommendation doesn’t come out of the blue, but is based on their data. So they also understand that they may need to recategorise some transactions.
Decision trees and linear regressions are within the scope Machine learning 
Yet we could argue it’s automation.
Developing machine learning models require tons of data that we don’t have since we’re brand new. So we try to use as much automation as possible. But we had to calibrate some machine learning models because not problem can be solved deterministically.
AI can be very poweful. The problem is that most companies use machine learning to make people spend money (have you watched the Social Dilema?) but I believe we reached the stage where the AI of tech companies have become too strong. Our lizard brain wasn’t designed to thrive in a world of overabundance where we see temptation to spend money non-stop.
So I really want to rebalance the force and build the AI force to help people save and experience the benefit of delayed gratification.
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Yep Nova sends daily motivation messages to keep people focused on their goals. And we have designed 3 personalities so far: Cute, Best Friend - and upon the request of our first users - Ruthless 
.
The Ruthless personality is accessible in the premium version. But few people can handle it
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Oh I see what you mean. We designed the Accounts screen to be the place you manage your current account + credit card balance. It’s easy to forget about credit card when you don’t add the negative card balance to the current account.
What do you think of the circular progress bar in the Goals screen?
If you want to track how your month is doing, have a look at this video.
And if you want to appreciate your overall progress, then we designed the analytics screen for it.
Ha that’s not supported. How about setting a date far away?
Do you see the marks on the circle: Lvl 2: 0%, Lvl 3: 5%, Lvl 4: 15%, Lvl5: 40%
The levels are based on your yearly % of Wealth creation (money saved or invested).
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Ah ok, I don’t have a credit card.
I like it!
I think I’m just trying to use the feature in a way that’s not intended so I won’t worry about that for now.
I do like the way it’s designed to be integrated with Accounts chart. I can see why it’s useful to set a date for the goal, although if I keep missing it then obviously I’m going to have to update the target date.
Yes.
This is what I was wondering - it’d be good if I could see what % I’d have to hit in order to reach each level in the app I see this now, I missed the Income Saved label before.
By the way, it’d be good if the app remembered which category I personally applied to a merchant’s transaction and applied the same category automatically going forwards (this mirror’s Monzo’s functionality).
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