Using AI for financial advice? Keep these 5 things out of your chats – Firstpost

For years, people were warned not to casually share sensitive financial information online. Now, many are beginning to hand over spending habits, subscriptions and even banking patterns directly to AI chatbots in exchange for convenience and personalised advice.

The trend goes far beyond just one AI model. A recent Cisco survey found that nearly three in ten AI users globally had already entered personal or confidential details, including financial and health-related information, into AI chatbots despite widespread concerns over privacy.

Meanwhile, a Stanford University study examining the privacy policies of major AI companies including Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI found that chat conversations are typically used by default to improve AI models, with some platforms reportedly retaining the data indefinitely.

This week,
OpenAI rolled out a new set of personal finance tools for ChatGPT Pro users in the United States, allowing the chatbot to connect with financial accounts through Paid integrations. Users can now ask ChatGPT to break down monthly expenses, identify recurring subscriptions or even help plan financial goals such as buying a house.

But as AI systems move deeper into personal finance, experts say the real risks may no longer be just about bad financial advice. They are increasingly about privacy, consent and the invisible trails of financial data people may be handing over without fully understanding the consequences.

AI financial chats may reveal more than users realise

According to Malcolm Gomes, Chief Operating Officer at Privy by IDfy, financial information shared with AI systems exposes far more than simple spending patterns.

“Financial data does not just reveal income,” Gomes said. “It reveals behaviour, liabilities, lifestyle patterns and vulnerabilities that most people would not share even with close acquaintances.”

That is what makes AI-powered financial assistants fundamentally different from ordinary chatbot interactions. Once users begin uploading transaction histories, discussing debts, sharing salary details or linking banking systems, the AI gains access to a highly detailed picture of a person’s life.

Gomes warned that most users still do not fully understand how AI systems process or retain such information. Questions around how long conversations are stored, whether data is used to train future AI models and whether deletion is genuinely verifiable remain unclear for many consumers.

He also pointed towards growing concerns under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) framework, where consent is expected to be informed, specific and limited to a clearly defined purpose.

“The gap between what users think they are consenting to and what actually happens to their data remains significant,” Gomes explained, adding that financial information may move through multiple infrastructure layers, third-party processors and international jurisdictions that users cannot see or track.

While AI tools may help simplify budgeting or spending analysis, Gomes believes there are clear limits to what users should disclose inside financial AI chats.

Login credentials: The first and most obvious category includes banking passwords, login credentials and authentication information.

Account details: Another major risk involves uploading full bank account details or complete card numbers. While users may think this helps provide context for financial analysis, it can expose them to fraud or identity misuse if systems are compromised.

UPI, CVV: Users should never share UPI PINs, OTPs, CVV numbers or security codes under any circumstances, even if the chatbot appears trustworthy.

Salary slips: Gomes also warned against sharing tax identifiers or sensitive official documents such as PAN details, salary slips or government-issued financial records.

Investment portfolios: Perhaps surprisingly, he said detailed investment portfolios and liability structures should also remain private. While these may appear useful when asking for AI-generated financial guidance, they can collectively create an extremely detailed financial profile of a user.

“Each of these may feel like harmless conversational context in the moment,” Gomes noted. “But together, they form a detailed financial dossier that users rarely realise they are handing over.”

The bigger question is accountability

As AI companies increasingly position chatbots as personal assistants capable of handling health, work and financial guidance, experts believe regulation will eventually catch up.

Gomes argued that the real challenge ahead is not whether companies have privacy policies, but whether they can clearly prove how financial data was captured, processed, stored and deleted inside AI systems.

He also suggested that AI platforms influencing financial decisions at scale may eventually face accountability standards similar to regulated financial institutions.

“The ones building real consent and governance infrastructure now will be in a much better place when that reckoning arrives,” he said.

For now, AI finance tools may offer convenience and curiosity. But as chatbots become more deeply woven into people’s financial lives, users may need to start treating these conversations with the same caution they would apply to sharing details with a bank, adviser or stranger online.