Claude can now analyze your spending with its new Personal Finance tool

Anthropic announced Thursday that Claude is getting a new tool called "Personal Finance," designed to help users keep track of their money. With it, users can connect their bank and credit card accounts through Plaid and ask Claude questions about their finances. Anthropic says access is read-only, meaning Personal Finance can't move, manage, or invest users' money.

By letting Claude connect directly to bank and credit card accounts, Anthropic is positioning its chatbot as a financial companion that can help people understand their spending and make sense of their money, rather than simply offering them generic advice.

With the launch, Claude is playing catch-up to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which introduced similar personal finance tools in May that also let users connect their financial accounts and ask questions about everything from spending patterns to long-term financial planning.

"Claude gives you answers in everyday language, from your balances and transactions, and explains any term that's new to you," Anthropic wrote in a blog post. "Like the rest of Claude, Personal Finance has no ads or sponsored recommendations, and it doesn't offer credit cards, loans, or savings accounts of its own, so your money questions get a straight answer."

For instance, at the end of the month, a user could ask Claude, "Where did my money go this month?" The chatbot will then add up spending across the connected accounts and sort it by category, such as rent and utilities, food and drink, and shopping. Users can choose to go deeper by following up with questions like, "Is that more than usual?" or "Anything else I'm missing?"

Anthropic says the tool goes beyond basic spending summaries by analyzing transactions across connected accounts to flag potential issues, such as duplicate charges, unexpected fees, and steadily increasing bills. Users can also ask broader questions about their finances, such as whether they're spending more than they earn. The tool can also explain financial concepts like APR (annual percentage rate), while providing calculations that show users how much they've paid in interest over the past year.

Of course, some people will have reservations about connecting their financial accounts to an AI chatbot. Anthropic says Claude's access is limited to each connected bank's name, account name and type, the last four digits of the account number, balances, credit limits, and up to two years of transaction history.

Additionally, the company notes that when users chat with Claude in the Personal Finance hub, those conversations aren't used to train its models.

Personal Finance starts rolling out in beta this week to users on the Pro, Max, and Ultra plans in the U.S.