Thanks to free and open source software, it is becoming easier to avoid selling your soul and data to the cloud.
With your own self-hosted LLM or Bitcoin node, you can take back much of your privacy by running similar services from your own node and home.
OpenAI is partnering with Plaid to let ChatGPT users connect their bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, and other financial accounts directly to the chatbot.
The feature gives ChatGPT a real-time view of your balances, transactions, stock portfolio, and liabilities including mortgages and credit card debt.
Over 200 million people already use ChatGPT for finance questions monthly. Plaid connects to 12,000 financial institutions including Chase, Schwab, Fidelity, and Capital One. The feature launches first for US users on ChatGPT's $200/month Pro tier before expanding to all users.
OpenAI says users can disconnect at any time, though the company retains data for up to 30 days after. Users can choose whether their financial data trains AI models under the option "Improve the model for everyone." Once data enters a training set, it's effectively irrecoverable.
ChatGPT can't make changes to accounts or see full account numbers, but it can see everything else. Combined with the conversation history it already stores, including your goals, lifestyle, and priorities, this creates one of the most detailed financial profiles any private company has ever assembled on individual users.
OpenAI does not specify what it will do with this data beyond AI training or what protections exist against a breach. Plaid itself paid a $58 million settlement in 2022 over allegations it collected more data than users understood they were sharing. Adding OpenAI as another party in the chain multiplies the attack surface.
This follows ChatGPT Health in January, which connects to medical records. OpenAI now wants access to both your health data and your financial data.
The feature is opt-in today. The pattern across tech has been consistent: start opt-in, then expand, then nudge, then default.