• OpenAI launches a personal finance service in ChatGPT
• It's being tested now with Pro subscribers in the US
• Connect your accounts, and ask queries about your finances

OpenAI's latest ChatGPT initiative is "a new personal finance experience": now available in preview to Pro subscribers in the US, the AI chatbot will connect up to user financial accounts, and answer queries on everything from daily budgeting to long-term savings.

In its announcement post, OpenAI says it wants to help people to make sense of their money more easily — without having to check across multiple apps, accounts, spreadsheets, and other records to understand incomings and outgoings.

"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 post states.

That said, the announcement also emphasizes that this "it is not a replacement for professional financial advice", which is probably wise given the potential for hallucinations. The service is powered by GPT‑5.5 Thinking⁠, which OpenAI says "outperforms earlier models on complex personal finance tasks".

It's still far from perfect though — it gets an 82.5 out of 100 on OpenAI's "internal benchmark", whatever that means — so if ChatGPT tells you you've been spending too much on iced coffees, or that you need to invest your savings in AI companies, you might want to double-check the working.

Users aren't convinced

According to OpenAI, lots of people are already asking for financial advice from ChatGPT, so this is a logical next step. The idea is you could ask about your spending habits over time, the best way to save up for a house, how much you're spending on subscriptions, and what the risks of certain investments are, for example.

The new personal finance experience has been developed in partnership with over 50 finance professionals, and as it gradually expands to more people, OpenAI wants to bring industry partners on board. Eventually, you could be able to ask about different loan options and then apply for a loan right in the ChatGPT app.

Accounts from more than 12,000 financial institutions can be connected, and Pro users can get started via the Finances option in the sidebar or with the "@Finances, connect my accounts" prompt. Accounts can be disconnected and chats can be deleted at any time, and ChatGPT cannot make any financial transactions (at least... not yet).

Once those accounts are connected, you get a dashboard of information that breaks down where your money is going and coming in from, and your finances over time: It all looks like a sleek set of tables and charts in Excel.

Judging by the Reddit reaction, the initial take-up might be slow: one user says this "sounds like malware", while another says it's "clearly insane". There are also very real concerns about data privacy and AI errors.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.