Meta ‘Muse’ subscription management popularity… A blow to subscription services that make cancellation difficult

Meta ‘Muse’ subscription management popularity… A blow to subscription services that make cancellation difficult

Cancellation in the order of health, video, news… “Financial institutions such as banks are also likely to be affected.”

(San Francisco = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kwon Young-jeon = Analysis has shown that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) agents that act as personal assistants could threaten the subscription economy market.

U.S. economic broadcaster CNBC reported on the 27th (local time) that the function to find and cancel forgotten paid subscription services is gaining popularity among Meta Muse users, which was launched earlier this month and claims to be a personal AI agent.

This function helps Muse find and cancel automatic transfers and payment details when users grant access to bank account and credit card information.

Subscription management functions like this have existed before, but AI agents make it easier to find unnecessary spending by incorporating them into personal assistant services.

The subscription economy has achieved significant sales growth due to the inertia of consumers who forget or postpone cancellation and the design of services that require time and effort to cancel subscriptions.

However, there are evaluations that AI agents are resolving both of these factors. In particular, unlike physical subscriptions, the impact on digital service subscriptions such as 'credit monitoring' is expected to be greater.

“When people are forced to make a decision, they are about four times more likely to cancel their subscription,” said Neil Mahoney, professor of economics at Stanford University, citing related data.

In fact, ScriveUp, a company that integrates subscription management technology using AI into financial apps, explained that the number of cases where its members apply to cancel other subscription services has increased by about 1.8 times compared to a year ago.

Jordan McClure, CEO of ScriveUp, said that the average monthly subscription fee canceled by users was $17.39 (about 24,000 won).

The area where the number of cancellations has increased most rapidly recently is health and fitness subscription services, which increased 3.8 times compared to the previous year. This was followed by video streaming (2.2 times), news and media (2.1 times), and music streaming (1.9 times).

Experts believe that the personal finance management of such AI personal assistants may have an impact on financial services as a whole beyond subscription services.

In a recent analysis, Tsten Slok, Apollo's chief economist, said, "AI assistants similar to Muse can automatically transfer individuals' spare funds to high-interest accounts of 3.3 to 5 percent instead of keeping them in current accounts (general deposit and withdrawal accounts) with interest rates of only 0.1 percent. If everyone uses these AI agents, banks could lose a significant portion of low-cost deposits that were the source of funds for loans."