Meta rolled out its new Muse AI agent this month, and early user testing shows it works surprisingly well as a personal budgeting coach. Users who gave Meta‘s assistant access to their credit card and bank statements found that it quickly flagged forgotten recurring charges, making it easier to identify and cancel unused services.
According to research from Stanford University economists Liran Einav, Ben Klopack, and Neale Mahoney, consumers are about four times more likely to cancel a subscription when forced to make a direct decision. Automated prompts from AI agents target consumer inertia, where people put off or forget about ending recurring bills (via CNBC).
The growing cost of monthly subscriptions
New data from Mastercard and FT Strategies shows that 44% of U.S. consumers increased their subscription spending in 2025. They averaged $157 a month or $1,887 a year. Bank of America payment tracking also indicates that subscription spend grew 7.7% year-over-year, with entertainment and retail services accounting for roughly 43% of those charges.
Figures from subscription-management company ScribeUp show that the median user currently pays for more than 12 recurring subscriptions, while 25% hold 20 or more. Cancellations have climbed across several categories, led by health and fitness apps at 3.8 times year-over-year, video streaming at 2.2 times, news media at 2.1 times, and music at 1.9 times. ScribeUp estimates that cutting these unnecessary recurring charges saves users an average of more than $300 per year, with the average canceled subscription costing $17.39 per month.
How are businesses and financial institutions responding
The change comes as subscription businesses are grappling with an average monthly churn rate of 20%, and more than half say at least 10% of their customer base is totally inactive. To fight churn, many companies are changing their retention tactics. Data from Recurly indicates a 337% jump in the use of “pause before cancel” options, with 75% of users who pause eventually returning to the service.
Beyond streaming services, agentic AI tools could impact broader financial systems. Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok noted that AI assistants could eventually move idle household cash into accounts yielding 3.3% to 5.0%, compared to the 0.1% average on checking accounts, reducing low-cost deposits for commercial banks.
Even with pushback—such as Amazon blocking Muse from accessing its site over terms of service concerns—Recurly found that 43% of consumers feel comfortable letting AI manage their recurring bills.
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