- Key insight: ChatGPT Pro users can now connect the chatbot to their bank accounts through Plaid for tailored money management advice.
- What's at stake: The launch could impact banks' relationships with the financial lives of their consumers.
- Expert quote: "Personal finance has been one of the most talked-about use cases for generative AI since the beginning." - PitchBook fintech analyst Rudy Yang
OpenAI is bringing bank account data into ChatGPT.
Through a partnership with the data aggregator Plaid announced on Friday, the artificial intelligence company now offers personal finance management directly from a user's connected bank account information to ChatGPT Pro users in the U.S.
"This partnership is notable but not surprising," Javelin Strategy senior digital banking analyst Dylan Lerner told American Banker. "Large language models (LLMs) need authenticated data sources to effectively address finances, and Plaid is a safe shortcut."
The launch could broaden the range of people who seek financial advice from ChatGPT and use it to organize their financial lives.
"LLMs like ChatGPT have been able to do only so much without access to consumers' financial data, leading to long inquiries where the LLM must ask about every dollar of the consumer's financial life to provide tailored financial advice," Lerner said. "That friction has largely disappeared."
That ease of access could also impact banks and their relationships with consumers, according to Lerner.
"ChatGPT is now in a position to provide personalized financial advice and own critical 'share of mind,' potentially reducing banks to underlying financial infrastructure and disintermediating them further from their customers," he said. "Basic banking is already being commoditized. This poses a new front of intense competition for financial institutions looking to differentiate on advice and engagement."
"Personal finance has been one of the most talked-about use cases for generative AI since the beginning," Pitchbook fintech analyst Rudy Yang previously told American Banker when OpenAI "
Bloch did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but announced the initial launch in
Plaid CEO Zach Perret said in a statement
"This is an important step towards bringing sophisticated, personalized financial advice to more people," he said.
OpenAI plans to extend the offering to ChatGPT Plus users in the near future, with the goal of making it available to everyone, according to a company statement.
"It's understandable to not make this available to unauthenticated users, but OpenAI goes further by launching it in the highest subscription tier," Lerner said. "Perhaps this is just their way of selling Pro, limiting initial reach or recouping aggregation costs. Either way, it directly ties monetization to capability. That will spark conversation about new revenue streams and value-added services."
As users upload their financial history to LLMs such as ChatGPT, some are uncertain on how securely that data will be stored and shared. Lerner said that the question of security depends on how the rollout is executed.
"Having access to balances and transactions is different from having access to usernames, passwords, account numbers, and other more sensitive information," he said. "If this operates like any other Plaid connection, it may not necessarily create new security risks for financial institutions. However, it does raise concerns about data governance, consent and external usage. What data will the AI model see, retain and consume?"
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication on how it is storing or securing users' financial data once it is uploaded into ChatGPT.
The company stated in a
A Plaid representative told American Banker that Plaid's integration with OpenAI works the same as all other companies Plaid works with, namely that Plaid uses encrypted APIs to connect consumers' financial accounts to ChatGPT with their consent.
"We only securely share permissioned financial data for specific, approved purposes and only ever with consumers' consent," the spokesperson said.
