CUSTOMER: OPENAI

Managing money often means jumping between bank accounts, credit cards, investment apps, and spreadsheets. And even when people have all the numbers, it can be hard to understand your money or what to do next.

Finances in ChatGPT is changing that. Part of a broader shift toward intelligent finance, it delivers a hyper-personalized financial experience. After securely connecting their financial accounts through Plaid, users can ask practical questions about their spending, loans, savings, investments, and more. That context helps ChatGPT provide more specific, personalized, and useful answers—with the aim of helping people better understand their finances and take action on them.

We sat down with Ethan Bloch, Product Lead for Personal Finance at OpenAI, to talk about how it all works, why the company chose to partner with Plaid, and how people are already using Finances in ChatGPT to save money, plan ahead, and take control of their financial lives.

Plaid: What’s challenging about managing money today?

Bloch: People have several accounts at different institutions, different bills, different priorities. Keeping it all in your head is almost impossible for any modern person. And most people don’t actually want to spend time managing their money. So the goal with Finances in ChatGPT is to make it come to you: telling you where you could be saving money, letting you know when there’s an opportunity. So you can stay on top of your finances without making it a second job.

Plaid: What exactly does Finances in ChatGPT do?

Bloch: Finances in ChatGPT lets you connect your financial accounts through Plaid. You choose which accounts to connect and what permissions to give. Once connected, ChatGPT can bring in your transactions and give you insight into what’s happening in your financial life: what you’re spending on, what’s double-charging you, what subscription you should consider canceling. You can even build a custom dashboard to manage your investments, or see what a big trip would do to your savings. Any financial decision you’re weighing, you can now work through it in ChatGPT.

Plaid: Who should be using it?

Bloch: Anyone can use Finances in ChatGPT and Plaid to get really personalized insights on what they should be doing, regardless of their economic situation, how much they understand about finance, or where they are in their journey.

That matters most for people who haven’t had the chance to really study finances and educate themselves. So many people get thrown into the real world, or get distracted by the lifestyle of college, and then life just hits you and you’re in it. Our goal is that regardless of who you are, who your parents are, or where you went to school—or whether you went to school at all—you can get tailored financial insights for whatever situation you’re in. It’s now accessible, and anyone can get that.

Plaid: And what are people typically using it for?

Bloch: The biggest thing we’re seeing when consumers start using Finances in ChatGPT is that they’re saving lots of money. They’ll connect Plaid into ChatGPT and their financial accounts, and very quickly find things they didn’t realize they were paying for, such as a subscription or a double charge. They can then ask ChatGPT to cancel or dispute it, or request a refund. We’re seeing consumers save hundreds of dollars with the feature.

Or maybe they’re thinking about taking time off work. We had one user who was weighing whether she could afford to take time off, and by using Finances in ChatGPT, she was able to quit her job and spend more time with her family, with the confidence that it wouldn’t put her in a bad financial situation.

Another big one is taxes: “What should I be doing to optimize my taxes?” A lot of people get obsessed with investing, but for most people, the biggest amount of money they could be saving is just doing their taxes better. And it’s much lower risk than picking what to buy or sell in the market.