On-Device AI Finance — Private AI for Your Money
Budgie's AI runs entirely on your phone. Smart suggestions, voice entry, and auto-categorization — no data leaves your device.
- Runs on your phone, not in the cloud — no API key, no subscription
- Category suggestions drawn from your own history — never from a cloud service
- Voice transaction entry — the audio never leaves the device
- Category and tag translation for Cyrillic, Greek, and Arabic names
- Every AI correction improves future suggestions via on-device learning
It all happens on your phone
One switch in Settings, and categories, tags, translation and voice entry all run where your data already is.
One switch, downloads on demand
New installs start with the On-device AI card off; if you were already using AI, it stays on. Either way the switch controls it, and each model downloads only when you first use the feature that needs it — about 2.5 GB in total if you use every feature including voice entry.
Nothing goes out to be processed
Budgie writes the English name and the search keywords for a foreign category right on the phone.
Nothing to send, nothing sent
Past that one download, no AI feature opens a connection. There is no provider in the loop to trust.
One switch for every AI feature
Translation and learning progress
Written on your phone
Keywords you can search by
No cloud sync, no tracking
- One switch for every AI feature
- Translation and learning progress
- Written on your phone
- Keywords you can search by
- No cloud sync, no tracking
Feature comparison
| Feature | Budgie | Cloud AI budget assistants |
|---|---|---|
| Where AI runs | On your phone | Vendor's cloud / remote AI service |
| What gets sent | Nothing | Every transaction title, often more |
| Works offline | Yes | No |
| AI subscription required | No | Often yes |
| Privacy from AI provider | Total — no provider exists | Bound by their privacy policy |
| Suggestion quality | Improves with your corrections | Static, plus your data trains their model |
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does Budgie's AI run?
Three jobs, all done on your device: understanding what you write or say, matching a new transaction against the ones you have already categorized, and turning speech into text. Every one of them runs on your phone with no external call.
How large is the one-time download?
About 1.6 GB for categorization and suggestions, plus a further 0.9 GB if you use voice entry. Nothing downloads until you switch On-device AI on in Settings, and then only when you first use the feature that needs it. Each download happens once and is kept on the device afterwards.
Does voice entry send audio to a server?
No. Voice entry transcribes the audio directly on your device. Your voice is never streamed to an external server and no recording is kept.
What languages does the AI support?
Categorization and suggestions work in any language because they are driven by your own history. Voice entry supports English, Ukrainian, German, French, and Spanish as primary languages, with broader coverage for dozens more.
How does AI improve over time?
Every time you accept, edit, or reject a category suggestion, Budgie updates its local index of your history. The more you use Budgie, the more closely its suggestions mirror your own spending patterns.
Can I turn AI off?
Yes. Settings has an AI section with a single On-device AI switch that turns the whole subsystem on or off. Switch it off and nothing downloads, nothing loads, and no suggestion runs — the rest of Budgie is unaffected. New installs start with it off; if you were already using AI before the switch existed, it stays on.
Which AI features run on my phone?
Category suggestions, tag suggestions, category and tag translation, and voice entry all run on your phone, on both iOS and Android — nothing leaves the device.
How is this different from a cloud AI assistant?
A cloud assistant ships your transaction titles to a remote service and trusts the provider's privacy policy. Budgie does the work on your device — there's no provider to trust.
Does on-device AI drain battery?
Nothing runs until you trigger it. Budgie gets ready when the feature that needs it starts, stays ready for about half a minute after you finish, and lets go when the app goes to the background — so the first request after a pause waits a moment and the ones after it do not.