OpenAI’s latest push to turn ChatGPT into a money manager is testing how much financial intimacy users are willing to grant an AI.
On April 2026, OpenAI quietly laid the groundwork by acquiring Hiro, an AI-powered personal finance startup, to bring specialist expertise in consumer money management into the company.1 Days later, it began building an internal benchmark with more than 50 finance professionals to tune its newest large language model, GPT‑5.5, for context-heavy money questions.2
On May 14, OpenAI formally unveiled “a new personal finance experience in ChatGPT” for U.S.-based Pro subscribers, framing it as a way to “securely connect your financial accounts, see a dashboard of where your money is going, and ask ChatGPT questions grounded in your financial context – all while staying in control of your data.”3 The company said over 200 million users already ask ChatGPT finance questions every month, and the new feature is meant to move from generic to personalized guidance built on real transaction data.2
On May 15, tech outlets detailed how the system works. Users can link bank, credit card, loan, and investment accounts via Plaid, which connects to more than 12,000 institutions including Schwab, Fidelity, Chase, Robinhood, American Express, and Capital One.2 Once connected, ChatGPT shows a dashboard of “portfolio performance, spending patterns, subscriptions, and upcoming payments” and can answer questions like “Has anything changed in my spending?” or “Help me build a plan to buy a house in five years.”2 OpenAI stresses it can see balances and transactions but “cannot see full account numbers or make changes,” and that synced data is deleted within 30 days of disconnecting.4
The same day, The Verge highlighted the stakes for user trust, noting that “your trust in AI is about to be put to the test” as OpenAI invites people to give a chatbot “direct access to your bank accounts,” even while promising control over data and the ability to delete “financial memories.”5 Privacy-focused coverage warned that the move gives OpenAI access to “the most intimate data category left,” raising questions about data security, future advertising, and regulatory scrutiny.4
OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman have publicly framed the launch as a convenience play, amplifying posts that call it “a preview for Pro users: a new personal finance experience in ChatGPT” where U.S. Pro users “can securely connect financial accounts, see where their money is going, and ask questions based on the information they choose to connect.”
6 Critics, however, see a broader test of whether consumers are ready to let a commercial AI product sit at the center of their financial lives.