AI financial planning during a layoff — the runway view, not financial advice.

Most general-purpose AI tools will calculate your runway if you ask. They will give you a number. The number is usually correct on the arithmetic and wrong on what is missing — they do not know your separation paperwork, the unemployment rules in your state, the COBRA-vs-marketplace math, or what counts as a real fixed expense versus a habit you can shrink in a hard month. CareerCanopy's financial-runway module is built for one specific question: how long can you afford to be in this search before a decision becomes a different decision. It is not financial advice and it is not a budgeting app. It is a calm planning tool that names a number and tells you what it means. It does not catastrophise — runway is a planning instrument, never a countdown clock. It does not flatter — you will see a real number, not a comfortable one. And it always tells you the alternatives at each runway tier, so the number is useful even when it is hard.

The one thing

Days of runway remaining — not 'days until broke'

The companion shows your runway as days remaining at your current cost of living, with the colour-coded tiers from the iOS app: 90+ days is steady, 60-89 is the planning zone, 30-59 is the bridge-income zone, and under 30 is the protect-the-basics zone. Each tier has specific guidance — which expenses are real, which are negotiable, what to file for, what to defer. It is the opposite of a financial-advice chatbot. It refuses to recommend products.

What it is not

The limits, listed up front.

It is not a licensed financial advisor. CareerCanopy provides runway-planning guidance, not investment advice, tax advice, or insurance advice. For those, talk to a CFP or CPA — many offer fifteen-minute calls for free.
It does not give specific investment recommendations. The companion will not tell you whether to sell stock, draw down a 401(k), or hold cash. Those decisions are yours and they have tax consequences that need a real human professional.
It is not real-time. Unemployment rules and marketplace subsidies change yearly. The companion is current within a few weeks but defers to your state agency and HealthCare.gov for binding numbers.
It cannot guarantee that any specific runway tier is enough. Search timelines vary by industry, role, and luck. Treat the runway view as a planning floor, not a forecast.

Questions

Common questions

Can AI do financial planning for a layoff?

AI is good at the math part — calculating runway, comparing COBRA versus marketplace, modelling spending changes. It is bad at the licensed-advice part — tax strategy, investment decisions, insurance products. CareerCanopy stays on the math side and refers users to a CFP or CPA for the licensed parts. That is the only honest way to use AI here.

Should I use ChatGPT for financial planning instead?

ChatGPT will help you with general financial concepts and basic budget math. It will not know your state's unemployment rules, will not remember your runway between conversations, and will sometimes give numerically-wrong answers with high confidence. CareerCanopy is constrained to one job and is calibrated against real state rules. For runway specifically, that matters.

Is my financial information private?

Yes. CareerCanopy stores your financial inputs in your account (Supabase, encrypted at rest) and uses them only to power your runway view. We do not sell user data, we are not paid by financial services companies, and we do not train third-party AI models on your conversations. The only person who sees your runway is you.

Your plan is built around what you tell us — not a template.

Start with a few questions. The plan follows.

Start your plan

Less than one session with a career coach.