There’s a particular kind of tech announcement that arrives dressed as a feature and leaves you feeling vaguely mugged. OpenAI’s push to connect ChatGPT to your bank account is one of those.

The pitch, as these things usually go, is reasonable on the surface. Let the AI see your transactions and it can help you budget, spot patterns, nudge you toward better financial habits. Useful, maybe, for some people. I don’t dismiss that entirely. Financial literacy is genuinely poor across most of the population, and tools that help people understand where their money goes aren’t inherently evil.