Bookkeeping, tax and accounting automation inside a small-business bank account, built on named third-party models (ChatGPT for transaction categorisation, Anthropic's Claude on Amazon Bedrock for the Accountant AI chatbot), now extended to accountants through an MCP server.
How is Lili business banking using AI?
Lili's AI is Accountant AI, a generative chatbot launched on May 16, 2024 that answers small-business owners' accounting and tax questions from their own Lili data; AWS says it runs on Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku through Amazon Bedrock. It followed Lili AI (August 2023), which used ChatGPT to help categorise transactions, and in 2026 Lili opened an MCP server for accountants. Lili is not a bank: Sunrise Banks, N.A. provides its accounts. Lili says it has served more than 200,000 businesses.
Category
Neobank
Founded
2018
Headquarters
New York, United States
Licence and supervision
Not a bank and holds no bank charter: business checking and savings accounts and the Lili Visa debit card are provided by Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC, with a sweep network of FDIC-insured program banks extending coverage to $3 million; wires run through Column Bank, N.A. and the BusinessBuild secured card is issued by First Internet Bank of Indiana with CapitalOS. Choice Financial Group was the bank named in Lili's 2021 and 2023 releases, and both banks were named in May 2024.
Scale
More than 200,000 US businesses served and over $2 billion in deposits facilitated since inception (June 2026)
Flagship platform
Lili AI / Accountant AI (with the Lili MCP server)
AI leadership
Lilac Bar David · Liran Zelkha · Eyal Solnik
- Accountant AI, launched May 16, 2024 and included in the Lili Smart ($35 a month) and Lili Premium ($55 a month) plans, is a generative chatbot that answers accounting and tax questions using the owner's data, data from similar businesses on Lili, current tax rules and human accounting expertise built into its prompts; Lili said it partnered with Amazon Bedrock for privacy and security.
- AWS's July 2024 case study, co-written with Lili's CTO and head of data, says Accountant AI runs on Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku on Amazon Bedrock, having moved from Claude Instant within two weeks of Claude 3's Bedrock release; Haiku was 10% to 20% faster and up to 68% cheaper per 1,000 tokens, and the chatbot had answered thousands of questions.
- Lili AI's first phase (August 2023) added predictive transaction categorisation that learns from Lili's own categorisation history, tens of millions of transactions, and uses ChatGPT as a complementary engine to classify sanitised transactions; Lili's disclosures say final categorisation for tax purposes remains the customer's responsibility.
- Lili launched an MCP server for accountants on May 28, 2026 (press release June 24): accountants connect Claude, Cursor or other MCP clients and query balances, transactions, invoices, bills and tax data only for clients that granted them access, using OAuth 2.0 and the same authorisation model as Lili's Accountants Portal.
- Lili is not a bank. Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC, holds deposits and issues the debit card, and since November 2025 a sweep network extends FDIC coverage to $3 million; Choice Financial Group was the partner bank in 2021 and 2023 releases, and both banks were named in May 2024.
- In July 2026 Lili refocused from freelancers on growing, multi-employee small businesses with a $0 Core plan; paid plans are Pro ($15 a month), Smart ($35) and Premium ($55). Lili says it has served more than 200,000 businesses and facilitated over $2 billion in deposits since inception.
- Founded by Lilac Bar David (CEO) and Liran Zelkha (CTO), who previously built Israeli challenger bank Pepper, Lili raised a $10 million seed and $15 million Series A in 2020 and a $55 million Series B led by Group 11 in May 2021, bringing total funding to $80 million; no later round has been announced.
What is Lili AI / Accountant AI (with the Lili MCP server)?
Lili AI launched in August 2023 as predictive transaction categorisation, combining Lili's internal transaction history with ChatGPT as a complementary classifier for sanitised transactions. Its second phase, Accountant AI (May 16, 2024), is a generative chatbot in the Lili Smart and Premium plans that answers accounting and tax questions using the owner's data, data from similar businesses on Lili and current tax rules; AWS says it runs on Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku on Amazon Bedrock behind a 'golden collection' guardrail that rejects off-topic questions. In May 2026 Lili opened an OAuth-gated MCP server that lets accountants query client-authorised banking data from Claude, Cursor and other AI assistants.[3][1][2][5][6]
What has Lili done on AI, and when?
- Jul 7, 2026
Refocus on growing, multi-employee small businesses[11]
Lili redesigned its platform around a $0 Core plan with high payment limits, team and accountant access and $3 million FDIC coverage, moving away from its freelancer origins; it said it had served more than 200,000 businesses.
- May 28, 2026
- Nov 17, 2025
$3 million FDIC coverage through Sunrise Banks[12]
A sweep network through partner Sunrise Banks, N.A. raised FDIC coverage from $250,000 to $3 million, alongside up to 4.00% APY on savings over $500,000.
- Jul 30, 2025
BusinessBuild credit-building programme[13]
A secured BusinessBuild card reporting to Dun & Bradstreet plus Connected Credit monitoring of six D&B scores inside the Lili account.
- Oct 29, 2024
Lili Connect embedded finance[14]
Partners can embed Lili's account opening, automatic transaction categorisation, invoicing, bill pay, reports and Tax Bucket in their own platforms.
- Aug 13, 2024
Dun & Bradstreet collaboration[15]
D&B small-business customers can open Lili accounts from myD&B and sync banking data with D&B Credit Insights; Lili presented it as following the Accountant AI launch.
- Jul 18, 2024
AWS details the Claude 3 Haiku architecture[2]
Lili's CTO and head of data describe guardrails that match each question against a curated 'golden collection' with Amazon Titan embeddings, prompts enriched with customer data, and a switch from Claude Instant to Claude 3 Haiku; thousands of questions answered.
- May 16, 2024
Accountant AI launches[1]
Generative chatbot giving personalised answers from the owner's data, similar businesses on Lili and current tax policy; Lili cited a partnership with Amazon Bedrock for privacy and security. Banking services were then provided by Choice Financial Group and Sunrise Banks.
- Aug 14, 2023
Lili AI: predictive transaction categorisation[3]
Phase one of what Lili calls the first AI accountant for small business owners combines its own history of tens of millions of transactions with ChatGPT as a complementary classifier for sanitised transactions; reconciliation, on-demand insights and prefilled tax forms were announced as planned features.
- Apr 18, 2023
Lili Smart puts accounting inside the bank account[4]
Accounting software added to the banking app so transactions are categorised as they happen and P&L, cash-flow and expense reports and invoices are generated in-app.
- May 11, 2021
$55 million Series B, $80 million raised[16]
Group 11 led with Target Global and AltaIR; Lili said its account base had doubled in six months and named Choice Financial Group as its bank.
- Oct 22, 2020
$15 million Series A[18]
Group 11 led again; Bar David said nearly 100,000 accounts had been opened since the 2019 launch and transactions were up 700% since the start of the pandemic.
- Jun 3, 2020
$10 million seed round[17]
Group 11 led; Lili, launched in 2019 by Pepper founders Lilac Bar David and Liran Zelkha, offered fee-free business accounts, expense categorisation and automatic tax set-asides to tens of thousands of freelancers.
Where does Lili use AI today?
| System | What it does | Status | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accountant AI chatbot[1][2][9] | Generative assistant in the Smart and Premium plans that answers accounting, tax and cash-flow questions from the owner's Lili data, peer-business data and current tax information. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Predictive transaction categorisation[3][9][8] | Lili AI suggests tax categories for transactions, learning from Lili's categorisation history and using ChatGPT to fill context gaps on sanitised transactions; transaction categorisation is included in the paid plans, and Lili says final categorisation for tax purposes is the customer's responsibility. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Named model vendors: OpenAI and Anthropic via AWS[3][2] | Lili disclosed ChatGPT as its classification engine in 2023 and AWS documented Accountant AI on Anthropic's Claude on Amazon Bedrock, with Amazon Titan embeddings called over AWS PrivateLink. | In production | Third-party & vendor AI |
| Guardrails and model evaluation[2] | Questions are matched against a curated 'golden collection'; low-similarity queries are rejected and the user asked to rephrase. Lili compared Claude 3 Haiku with Claude Instant on quality, response time and cost before switching. | In production | Model risk management |
| MCP server for accountants[5][7][6] | Accountants query client balances, transactions, invoices, bills, tax data and documents through Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf or other MCP clients; Lili says it is live for all accountant partners. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Data minimisation and scoped access[3][2][5] | Only sanitised transactions go to ChatGPT; Accountant AI's embedding calls run over a private AWS PrivateLink connection; MCP access uses OAuth 2.0 tokens scoped to the user and is limited to clients that granted the accountant permission. | In production | Data & privacy |
Use-case links open the tracker's rules-by-use-case matrix: which documents govern each system type.
What has Lili disclosed in numbers?
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses served / deposits | more than 200,000 businesses; over $2 billion in deposits facilitated since inception[6] | Jun 24, 2026 |
| Total venture funding | $80 million (after the $55 million Series B)[16] | May 11, 2021 |
| Accounts opened in the first year | nearly 100,000 since the 2019 launch[18] | Oct 22, 2020 |
| Claude 3 Haiku vs Claude Instant | 10% to 20% faster responses; up to 68% lower cost per 1,000 input/output tokens[2] | Jul 18, 2024 |
| Transactions behind Lili AI categorisation | tens of millions processed[3] | Aug 14, 2023 |
| Plan fees | Core free; Pro $15/month ($144/year); Smart $35/month ($336/year); Premium $55/month ($528/year); Accountant AI in Smart and Premium[9] | Oct 16, 2026 |
| FDIC coverage and savings yield | up to $3 million via Sunrise Banks and a sweep network; 2.25% APY up to $500,000 and 4.00% from $500,000 to $1 million[11][10] | Jul 7, 2026 |
“Accountant AI will revolutionize the way business owners interact with their financial data by providing them with quick and more affordable answers to all of their accounting and financial questions.”[1]
Lilac Bar David · Co-founder and CEO, Lili · May 16, 2024
“By connecting AI tools to Lili's banking data through our MCP server, accountants can move faster from financial data to strategic guidance, strengthening the value they bring to their clients.”[6]
Lilac Bar David · Co-founder and CEO, Lili · Jun 24, 2026
“The AI does the navigation and the pattern recognition. The accountant does the advising.”[5]
Lili · Company blog announcing the MCP server · May 28, 2026
Who runs AI at Lili?
Which regulators govern Lili's AI?
| Authority | Why it matters here | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| OCC | Sunrise Banks, N.A., which holds Lili's deposits and issues its debit card, is a national bank, so the OCC supervises the bank-fintech programme under which Lili's categorisation, chatbot and MCP access run, including the interagency third-party guidance. | OCC Bulletin 2023-17 |
| FDIC | Lili's deposits carry FDIC pass-through insurance at Sunrise Banks and, since November 2025, across a sweep network of program banks up to $3 million, which depends on accurate records of each customer's funds held by the bank and Lili. | FDIC FIL-29-2023 |
| CFPB | Lili serves sole proprietors and freelancers as well as companies, so its Accountant AI chatbot and the BalanceUp discretionary overdraft sit close to the CFPB's concerns about chatbots and automated decisions in consumer finance, although Lili's accounts are business accounts. | CFPB Chatbots in Consumer Finance (issue spotlight, 2023) |
Linked authorities have a page in the Regulation tracker; the others are named for completeness and not yet tracked.
What does the public record suggest about Lili's AI strategy?
Analysis by BankingNewsAI from the sources cited on this page. Observations, not advice.
01
Lili names its model vendors
Few neobanks say which models they use; Lili disclosed ChatGPT for categorisation in 2023, and AWS's case study, co-written with Lili's CTO, names Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku and the switch from Claude Instant, with latency and cost figures.
02
The AI is a paid-tier feature
Accountant AI, invoicing and prefilled tax forms sit in the $35 Smart and $55 Premium plans, while the 2026 relaunch made banking free in the Core plan. The AI is part of what Lili sells rather than a cost-cutting tool for its own support.
03
From replacing the accountant to equipping one
In 2024 AWS described Accountant AI as reducing the need to hire a professional accountant; the 2026 MCP server was built 'for accountants first', with the line 'The AI does the navigation. The accountant does the advising.' The target user of Lili's AI has moved.
04
Usage is undisclosed after 2024
The last usage figure is 'thousands of questions' answered (July 2024). Lili publishes businesses served and deposits but not how many customers use Accountant AI or how many accountants use the MCP server.
05
A bank-partner model with a long tail of partners
Deposits at Sunrise Banks and sweep banks, wires at Column Bank, a credit card at First Internet Bank of Indiana with CapitalOS, and an earlier relationship with Choice Financial Group: Lili's AI runs across several banks' supervisory perimeters, none of them Lili's own.
What is Lili's Accountant AI?
Accountant AI is a generative AI chatbot Lili launched on May 16, 2024 for small-business owners. It answers accounting, tax and financial questions using the owner's Lili data, comparisons with similar businesses on Lili and current tax information, with human accounting expertise built into its prompts. It is included in the Lili Smart ($35 a month) and Lili Premium ($55 a month) plans. Lili says it has served more than 200,000 businesses.
Does Lili use ChatGPT or Claude?
Both, for different jobs. Lili said in August 2023 that Lili AI's predictive transaction categorisation uses ChatGPT as a complementary engine to classify sanitised transactions alongside its own data. AWS's July 2024 case study, co-written with Lili's CTO, says Accountant AI runs on Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku on Amazon Bedrock, having switched from Claude Instant because Haiku was 10% to 20% faster and up to 68% cheaper.
Is Lili a bank?
No. Lili App Inc. is a financial technology company. Its business checking and savings accounts and Visa debit card are provided by Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC, and since November 2025 a sweep network of program banks extends FDIC coverage to $3 million. Wires run through Column Bank and the BusinessBuild card is issued by First Internet Bank of Indiana. Lili's 2021 and 2023 releases named Choice Financial Group as its bank.
What is the Lili MCP server?
Launched on May 28, 2026 and announced by press release on June 24, it is a Model Context Protocol server that lets accountants connect Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf or other MCP-compatible assistants to their clients' Lili banking data. It uses OAuth 2.0 and only reaches clients that granted the accountant access. Lili says one prompt can sweep a client book for uncategorised transactions, tax shortfalls and low balances.
How much does Lili cost?
Lili Core is free. Lili Pro costs $15 a month or $144 a year and adds expense categorisation, receipts and automatic tax savings; Lili Smart costs $35 a month or $336 a year and adds full accounting reports, prefilled tax forms, invoicing, bill management and Accountant AI; Lili Premium costs $55 a month or $528 a year and adds a metal card and VIP support. Savings earn 2.25% APY up to $500,000 and 4.00% above that up to $1 million.
How big is Lili and who funds it?
Lili says it has served more than 200,000 US businesses and facilitated over $2 billion in deposits since inception. It raised a $10 million seed and a $15 million Series A in 2020 and a $55 million Series B led by Group 11 in May 2021, for $80 million in total; other backers include Foundation Capital, AltaIR, Primary Venture Partners, Torch Capital, Target Global and Zeev Ventures. No later round has been announced.
Who regulates Lili?
Lili holds no bank charter. Its partner Sunrise Banks, N.A. is a national bank supervised by the OCC, which covers the bank's oversight of Lili's programme, and deposits carry FDIC pass-through insurance at Sunrise and its sweep-network banks up to $3 million. Lili serves sole proprietors as well as companies, so CFPB expectations on chatbots are relevant, but no enforcement action against Lili has been found.
- Lili Launches Accountant AI to Help Small Businesses Manage Their Finances
- Secure AccountantAI Chatbot: Lili's journey with Amazon Bedrock
- The Future of Accounting: How AI Stands to Revolutionize Small Businesses (Introducing Lili AI)
- Banking and Accounting in One Platform (Introducing Lili Smart)
- Introducing the Lili MCP server – and why we built it for accountants first
- Lili Launches MCP Server to Bring AI-Powered Banking Insights to Accountants
- What is the Lili MCP?
- Lili AI
- What account plans does Lili offer?
- Who is Lili's partner bank?
- Lili Announces 2026 Business Banking Platform for Growing Small Businesses (press release)
- SMB Banking Platform Lili Significantly Raises High-Yield Business Savings Account to Earn 4.00% APY And Increases FDIC Insurance Coverage to $3M
- Lili Launches BusinessBuild Program to Empower Small Businesses to Build Their Credit Profile
- Lili Launches Lili Connect to Revolutionize Small Business Financial Management
- Lili Teams Up with Dun & Bradstreet to Empower Small Businesses to Take Steps to Establish Business Credit
- Lili Raises $55M Series B To Support Growing Number of Freelancers in the $1.2T U.S. Freelance Economy
- Lili raises $10M for its freelancer banking app
- Freelancer banking startup Lili raises $15M
Neobank
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Card network
Brokerage
Business finance & infrastructure
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