On Thursday, Anthropic revealed ‘Personal Finance,’ a new feature for Claude aimed at assisting users with money management. This tool allows users to link their bank and credit card accounts via Plaid, enabling them to query Claude about their financial details. Anthropic confirms that access is strictly read-only, preventing Personal Finance from transferring, handling, or investing user funds.
By facilitating direct connections to bank and credit card accounts, Anthropic is transforming its chatbot into a financial assistant. This aims to empower individuals to comprehend their spending habits and manage their finances more effectively, moving beyond generalized guidance.
This new release positions Claude to catch up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which rolled out comparable personal finance capabilities in May. ChatGPT’s tools also permit users to link financial accounts and inquire about various topics, from spending habits to long-term financial strategies.
In a blog post, Anthropic stated, “Claude provides answers in straightforward language, covering your balances and transactions, and clarifies any unfamiliar terms.” The company added, “Consistent with the rest of Claude, Personal Finance is free of ads or sponsored suggestions and does not promote its own credit cards, loans, or savings accounts, ensuring unbiased responses to your financial inquiries.”
For example, a user might prompt Claude at month’s end with, “Where did my funds go this month?” The chatbot would then aggregate expenditures from linked accounts, categorizing them into areas like rent, utilities, food, beverages, and retail. Users have the option to delve further with questions such as, “Is this spending higher than typical?” or “Am I overlooking anything important?”
Anthropic highlights that the tool offers more than simple spending overviews; it scrutinizes transactions across linked accounts to pinpoint potential problems like duplicate payments, hidden charges, or consistently rising expenses. Additionally, users can pose wider financial inquiries, such as whether their expenditures exceed their income. The tool is also capable of clarifying financial terms like APR (annual percentage rate) and furnishing calculations detailing annual interest payments.
Naturally, some individuals may feel apprehensive about linking their financial accounts to an AI chatbot. Anthropic assures that Claude’s access is restricted to the connected bank’s name, account name and type, the final four digits of the account number, balances, credit limits, and a maximum of two years of transaction history.
Furthermore, the company emphasizes that conversations held within the Personal Finance hub with Claude are not utilized for training its AI models.
The beta version of Personal Finance will begin its rollout this week for Pro, Max, and Ultra plan subscribers in the U.S.
This new tool’s introduction coincides with Anthropic’s broader strategy to extend Claude’s reach into diverse sectors. Earlier this year, for example, Anthropic introduced specialized versions like Claude for Legal and Claude for Financial Services.