How Artificial Intelligence is Shaping Financial Reasoning among the Unbanked

Digital financial ecosystems have expanded across developing economies, yet financial literacy initiatives often fail to engage with the relational and experiential dimensions of how knowledge is formed. Much of the existing literature privileges access and usability, leaving unexamined the situated processes through which financial understanding and behavior take form. This study examines how anthropomorphic virtual assistants (AVAs) interact with cognitive routines, emotional dispositions, and collective practices, not as external tools but as relational figures embedded in everyday financial navigation. Through repeated prompts, familiar analogies, and culturally responsive guidance, AVAs support gradual shifts in comprehension, habit, and group coordination. AVAs are drawn into household planning, small-group deliberation, and silent self-assessment, where they assume a role neither instructional nor advisory, but durational and interpretive. The analysis reframes AI not as a delivery mechanism but as a participant in the composition of financial sensemaking. Implications extend to learning environments grounded in narrative, resonance, and socially distributed reasoning.