{"id":7036474,"date":"2026-08-10T09:55:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/finance\/is-it-safe-to-put-my-financial-documents-into-ai-tools\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T09:55:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:55:29","slug":"is-it-safe-to-put-my-financial-documents-into-ai-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7036474","title":{"rendered":"Is It Safe to Put My Financial Documents into AI Tools?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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By now you\u2019ve probably seen people talk about how AI tools, like ChatGPT and Claude, can help you manage your finances. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve played around with it a little bit but find that I prefer to use AI powered apps instead. Uploading a bunch of documents and \u201cchatting\u201d is a bit too unstructured for me.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, many popular budgeting and planning tools, like Monarch Money<\/a> and Boldin<\/a>, have integrated AI into their tools too.<\/p>\n

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The natural question is \u2013 is it safe to put your financial information into these AI powered tools? What about the large language model (LLM) AI tools?<\/p>\n

Yes and no.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my approach:<\/p>\n

\nTable of Contents<\/summary>\n
    \n
  1. Here\u2019s What I Do\u2026<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Treat AI like Email or Cloud Storage<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Use Temporary or Incognito Chats<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Turn Off Training<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Are AI Powered Apps Safe?<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Conclusion<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/details>\n

    Here\u2019s What I Do\u2026<\/h2>\n

    I don\u2019t, on a regular basis, upload sanitized documents directly into ChatGPT or Claude and have it give me a financial analysis. I\u2019ve done it in the past to play with it and see what it could do, but it\u2019s not a part of our personal monthly financial check-in.<\/p>\n

    UPDATED 6\/25\/26:<\/strong> ChatGPT Pro users now have the capability to connect your accounts using Plaid in what they are calling \u201cconnected finances<\/a>.\u201d I have not used it yet but it looks promising, especially if you pay for ChatGPT Pro for other purposes and are comfortable giving them access to your data. It follows the same model training settings as your account.<\/p>\n

    I have no concerns with it, I just haven\u2019t found a good use case for it yet and there are already powerful alternatives out there.<\/p>\n

    I do, however, use Boldin<\/a> for retirement planning and it has an AI assistant (Ask Boldin) that you can ask questions as if it were a financial coach.<\/p>\n

    \"\"\"\"<\/figure>\n

    With Boldin, I connect my accounts via Plaid. The Plaid connect is read-only (they all are) and the AI powered coach has access to the data. I suspect the AI powered coach has guardrails where it doesn\u2019t have access to the Plaid connection (not that it could do anything with it, as it\u2019s read-only).<\/p>\n

    We don\u2019t use a budgeting tool but if we were, I\u2019d probably consider Monarch Money<\/a>. It\u2019s affordable, well regarded, and has all the features we\u2019d like in a one-stop shop for money management. I haven\u2019t used them in a few years but my friend Jacob has this great Monarch Money tutorial video<\/a> and it looks powerful.<\/p>\n

    Treat AI like Email or Cloud Storage<\/h2>\n

    AI tools have privacy controls but by default they store conversations and may use that data to train their models. If you have private information included in anything you upload, that will be stored in your conversations and could be use to train their models \u2013 both of which are not ideal.<\/p>\n

    The solution is to treat AI like cloud storage or email \u2013 which is secure until it isn\u2019t. You don\u2019t want someone who got access to your account to be able to discover private information.<\/p>\n

    Before you upload anything, make sure it\u2019s sanitized first.<\/p>\n

    Remove or black out:<\/p>\n