OpenAI wants access to your wallet.
On Friday, the company released a preview version of a personal finance feature for U.S.-based ChatGPT Pro users. Select users will now be able to connect their accounts across more than 12,000 financial institutions to the chatbot to view a financial dashboard of their recent account activity and to ask ChatGPT “questions grounded in your financial context,” the company announced in a press release.
The feature also includes a partnership with financial software company Intuit, in which users will be able to schedule sessions with local tax experts all within ChatGPT. The goal is to eventually make the feature available to all users.
“With your financial accounts connected, ChatGPT can combine that reasoning with your real financial context and what you’ve shared about your goals, lifestyle, and priorities, helping you spot patterns, understand tradeoffs, and plan for big decisions in a way that feels more personal and complete,” the company said.
That context can include whether you have a mortgage, if you’re saving up to buy a car, or any debt you are trying to pay off. ChatGPT can remember all that to “inform future conversations” where users might ask the chatbot to analyze changes in spending patterns, figure out the biggest risks in their portfolios, or build out a plan to buy a house in the next five years.
If you are someone reasonably wary of giving out sensitive financial information about yourself, especially to an AI chatbot that had a major data leak scandal not that long ago, you might be thinking, “Why on Earth would I want to do that?” But OpenAI claims there is some existing appetite for it. More than 200 million people every month ask for ChatGPT’s help on things like budgeting, investment strategy, and future planning, the company shared in the press release.
The company also claims that, with this new tool, the practice will now be safe. The bank accounts will be “securely” connected, and ChatGPT won’t be able to see “full account numbers or make any changes to your accounts,” OpenAI said. But still, the chatbot will be able to access your balances, transactions, investments, and liabilities in order to perform the tasks that OpenAI is advertising.
This information will likely be saved by OpenAI and used at least to train its AI models, that is, if you opt into it through the “improve the model for everyone” option in settings. Chances are, you already do opt into this, as the setting is auto-enabled for users, though you can easily opt out by turning the toggle off.
OpenAI has not detailed any way that user data can be used other than for training models. But the company has notoriously walked back some previous ChatGPT claims and promises on its rocky quest for profitability ahead of a rumored IPO. Plus, both the company and its CEO Sam Altman are currently enveloped in a flashy legal battle with Elon Musk, in which some of the unearthed evidence and witness testimony have framed Altman as a liar, though he denies the accusations.
Uploading that sensitive information can also carry substantial risks in the event of a hack, leak or breach.
“If your documents are part of AI’s training data – there is a risk that information will be induced by a special prompt that malicious actors might use,” University of Illinois associate computer science professor Gang Wang told CNN earlier this week when asked about the risks of sharing financial information with AI chatbots. The interview took place before OpenAI’s announcement of the feature.
For example, a hacker who somehow abused ChatGPT to gain access to your recent payments can use that information to craft a believable phishing email, because they would know the exact date you purchased something from a specific merchant and exactly how much you paid.
