It's walked me through setting up a brokerage account, helped me understand how to start investing, and pointed me toward books and resources so I could learn the basics quickly. I read them. I followed the advice. I'm now averaging a 16% return on my investments. In other words, ChatGPT has genuinely helped me make better financial decisions.
So when I saw that OpenAI had launched a personal finance experience inside ChatGPT, my ears perked up.
Until now, like many people, I've handled a lot of my money management manually. I check balances, track debts, review recurring charges, monitor subscriptions, and try to make sense of everything using spreadsheets and banking apps.
ChatGPT Finances, however, promises to make that easier -- by letting me securely connect my financial accounts through Plaid, including my investment accounts. Once everything syncs, ChatGPT can answer questions using my real data.
What you'll need: OpenAI's Finances feature is available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users in the US on the web, iOS, and Android. It can connect to thousands of financial institutions, including banks, credit unions, credit card companies, lenders, investment firms, and more, but you'll need a free Plaid account to get started. Plaid acts as a secure bridge.
Yes, but with boundaries. Now that ChatGPT has access to my financial data, I made sure to set up passkeys and MFA, and enroll in Advanced account security, which requires stronger sign-in methods and disables options like email account recovery. All of these security features are available in ChatGPT under Settings > Security and login.
For me, the ability to have ChatGPT answer personal finance questions with real data instead of summaries I manually typed in is extremely useful. I can ask about recurring charges, spending changes, investments, debt, and cash flow without copying everything over myself. I already treated ChatGPT like a financial adviser, so this is a game-changer for me.
So far, ChatGPT Finances has helped me better understand spending and make decisions about investing, saving, and debt. AI is not a foolproof replacement for professional financial advice, but it is another tool I can use, and honestly, this is one of the most comprehensive solutions I've found. It makes the tedious work of checking my finances so much easier.
I've tried other apps in the past that promise the same thing, but they wouldn't work with half of my accounts. They also lacked the ability to feed in additional context through a chat and use AI to work through questions and get help.
I'm incredibly impressed by ChatGPT Finances right now -- the setup process through Plaid, the dashboard, the ability to use AI for financial planning, all of it. Although I am wary of the potential privacy and security risks, I've done my best to lock everything down in settings so I can continue using ChatGPT Finances without worry.