ChatGPT will offer personalized financial advice (if you connect your bank account)

OpenAI

OpenAI is rolling out a preview of a new personal finance feature inside of ChatGPT. Starting today, Pro users in the US can connect their financial accounts to ChatGPT in order to get more personalized advice from the chatbot.

To hear OpenAI tell it, every month more than 200 million users already turn to ChatGPT for guidance on managing their money. By building a framework that allows those people to connect their accounts to its servers, ChatGPT can go from offering generic advice to helping those same users take actions that more directly improve their lives. The integration is made possible through a partnership OpenAI has signed with Plaid, which offers connections to more than 12,000 financial institutions, including banks like Citi and Chase, in addition to services like Affirm and Robinhood.

To begin using the new integration, find the "Finances" section inside of ChatGPT's sidebar or write a prompt along the lines of "@Finances, connect my accounts." ChatGPT will guide you through the process of importing your financial information through Plaid. The chatbot will then start building a visual dashboard, like the one you see in the screenshot OpenAI provided. The process of generating a visual representation of your finances may take a few minutes. From there, you can select one of the starter prompts or ask your own questions.

Understandably, some people may be hesitant to share their financial information with ChatGPT. OpenAI is looking to address those concerns by limiting the scope of what its chatbot can see. According to the company, ChatGPT can only read your balances, transactions, investments and liabilities through Plaid. It cannot see full account numbers or make changes to your accounts through the system.

Additionally, the company says users can disconnect their financial accounts from ChatGPT at any time, and any memories the chatbot saves about your financial situation can be seen or deleted directly from the Finances section of the app. ChatGPT cannot access these memories when using the temporary chats feature. Lastly, OpenAI's data controls settings apply to the new experience, so if you've already dug into those, your prompts and other information won't be used by the company to train future models.

According to an OpenAI spokesperson, work on the feature began before the company's recent acquisition of fintech startup Hiro, which offered an AI-powered financial planning tool for consumers. The company hopes to bring this new experience to more users, including Plus subscribers, in the future. "We're starting with a preview to a smaller group so we can learn from real-world use, improve the experience, and expand thoughtfully," OpenAI said.