Anthropic has added personal finance features to Claude, taking on OpenAI’s ChatGPT finance functions in earnest.

According to IT outlet Engadget on Nov. 7, the two services are similar in that they link bank accounts to show spending and asset flows and answer finance-related questions, but they differ in privacy settings and how they use data.

Claude’s new feature is called Personal Finance. OpenAI added a Finances feature to ChatGPT in May. Both can handle questions tied to personal financial goals such as real estate, travel planning and savings plans. They also generate dashboards that show monthly spending, investment details and spending habits at a glance. Both companies drew a line, saying the features are not meant to provide professional-level financial advice.

How they are used is also similar. Users must link bank accounts, and both companies worked with Plaid to enable that. Accounts at major financial institutions such as Bank of America, Capital One and Chase can be linked. After linking, both services have read-only access to accounts and cannot execute transactions, including anything beyond viewing account information.

The difference is what data they see and how they store it. Anthropic said Claude can view the bank name, account name, account type, the last four digits of the account number, balance, credit limit and up to two years of transaction history. OpenAI said ChatGPT Finances can view balances, transaction history, investment information and debt information.

They also differ on privacy settings. Anthropic said conversations through Personal Finance are not used for model training. It also said that if a user unlinks a bank account, Claude can no longer view previously provided financial data.

OpenAI, by contrast, said conversations with linked financial accounts follow existing ChatGPT settings. ChatGPT’s default setting allows training. If users do not want their data used, they must turn off the "Improve the model for everyone" option in the data controls menu in settings. The company said that if an account is unlinked, related account data is deleted from OpenAI systems within 30 days.

Differences also show up in how the services are run. Anthropic stressed that Personal Finance has no ads or sponsored recommendations and does not offer its own credit cards, loans or savings accounts. OpenAI also did not mention ads, but it has been testing introducing ads in cheaper plans since January this year.

Future expansion strategies also differ. OpenAI is working with Intuit to pursue ways to broaden ChatGPT Finances to cover credit card applications and tax-related questions. Anthropic says it will improve Personal Finance by taking input from banks, wealth managers and financial services companies. As a result, competition in AI chatbots’ finance functions is expected to move beyond simple household ledger assistance to a battle over data-use policies and the scope of service expansion.