As nearly a billion people use ChatGPT weekly, many for financial planning, OpenAI has announced a new feature that will allow users to connect their financial accounts to the chatbot.
This was contained in a blog post published on OpenAI’s website on Friday, May 15, 2026, which indicated that while the feature would initially be made available to Pro users in the United States, the personal finance experience would later roll out to Plus users before becoming available to all users once “we learn and improve from early use.”
- “Today we’re releasing a preview of a new personal finance experience in ChatGPT to Pro users in the U.S.,” the company said.
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Why OpenAI is introducing Personal Finance on ChatGPT
Since its launch in November 2022, the use of ChatGPT has expanded from being a chatbot many people used mainly for generating written content into a tool for coding, therapy, and even financial guidance.
According to the company, “more than 200 million people come to ChatGPT every month for budgeting, questions about their investments, comparing different paths, planning for future goals, and more.”
This growing demand for financial guidance has provided OpenAI with the opportunity to introduce a feature that allows users to securely link their accounts through Plaid on web and iOS, with support for more than 12,000 financial institutions.
The feature is expected to help users navigate the complexities of their finances and make more informed decisions.
“Money touches nearly every part of life: where we live, what decisions we make, how we care for loved ones, what future we imagine. But managing finances today often means piecing together accounts, apps, cards, loans, and spreadsheets just to know where things stand. Even then, it can be hard to see the full picture or know what to do next,” the company argued.
Judging from an annual report cited by the World Economic Forum, nearly half of U.S. citizens are not financially literate. A lack of basic knowledge about budgeting, savings, and investments could be one of the factors contributing to the 57% of American adults who admit to living paycheck to paycheck.
“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,” OpenAI noted.
Issues with privacy of financial data
Noting that financial data is sensitive, the company said it has “built this experience to respect your privacy and ensure that you’re in control of your information.”
While explaining that “when you connect your accounts, ChatGPT can access your balances, transactions, investments, and liabilities to help visualize your finances or answer your questions,” OpenAI added that “your conversations with connected financial accounts follow the same model training settings you choose across ChatGPT.”
This means that if a user’s Data Controls setting for “Improve the model for everyone” is turned on, their financial-related conversations and records could potentially be used to help train the AI models powering ChatGPT, despite the sensitive nature of such information.