Anthropic adds Personal Finance tool to Claude for spending analysis

Anthropic announced on Thursday that its Claude chatbot will include a new Personal Finance feature, allowing users to link bank and credit‑card accounts through Plaid with read‑only access. The company says the addition is meant to act as a financial companion, helping people understand spending rather than giving generic advice, and it positions Claude against OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which launched a similar service in May that also lets users connect accounts for financial queries.

In a blog post Anthropic wrote, “Claude gives you answers in everyday language, from your balances and transactions, and explains any term that’s new to you.” Anthropic added, “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.” Users might, for example, ask at month‑end, “Where did my money go this month?” The chatbot would total expenditures across linked accounts and break them down by categories such as rent, utilities, food and drink, and shopping, with follow‑up queries like “Is that more than usual?” or “Anything else I’m missing?” supported.

Anthropic says the feature goes beyond simple summaries by scanning transactions from the connected accounts to flag possible problems, including duplicate charges, unexpected fees and steadily rising bills. It can also answer broader questions such as whether a user is spending more than they earn, and it can explain concepts like APR while calculating interest paid over the past year. The firm notes that Claude’s access is limited to each bank’s name, the account name and type, the last four digits of the account number, balances, credit limits and up to two years of transaction history, and that chats in the Personal Finance hub are not used to train its models.

The Personal Finance tool begins a beta rollout this week for customers on the Pro, Max and Ultra plans in the United States. Anthropic has been extending Claude into specialised areas, having launched Claude for Legal and Claude for Financial Services earlier this year.