Plaid partners with four LLMs, but AI still lags on financial advice

Plaid has integrated Muse into its platform, allowing customers to obtain their personal bank information and to seek financial advice from Meta ’s personal assistant. Plaid, a data infrastructure company , already works with LLM providers OpenAI , Perplexity and Grok , Kathleen McGuirk , head of AI go-to-market and partnerships at Plaid, told FinAi News. The expansion opportunities for AI personal finance management tools is significant, she said. “In Plaid's own research, more than half of Americans are already using AI for financial tasks like budgeting and investment research, and that trend is accelerating,” McGuirk said. [caption id="attachment_57389255" align="alignright" width="359"] (AI-generated)[/caption] Targeted consumers are new users looking for ways to manage money, not just users of personal finance management tools who are pivoting to AI assistants, McGuirk said. But as Plaid inks deals and consumers increasingly turn to LLMs for guidance on everything from debt prioritization to retirement planning, a benchmark study by U.K.-based fintech Saturn raises questions about whether these models are ready for the task. AI advice Saturn tested 18 of the most popular AI models — including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and CoPilot — with 121 money questions, according to the company’s Artificial Authority report released on Sept. 19. The LLMs were asked questions such as how someone with several debts should decide which ones to prioritize, how do repayment rules apply when a student loan borrower moves or works abroad, and simple questions like the definition of inflation. The questions were run through LLMs more than 10,000 times between July 6 and July 30. LLMs were incorrect 57% of the time across all categories of questions. This comes at a moment when consumer trust in AI for financial guidance has already outpaced trust in human advisers. The percentage of people who trust AI tools for advice (26%) is almost triple the percentage who receive regulated financial advice (9%). Bank’s response AI tools have long been known to hallucinate, so mistakes when providing financial advice is not a surprise, Pierre Buhler , managing director of financial services practice at consulting firm SSA , told FinAi News . LLMs are trained to know as much as possible, which might hinder their domain-specific expertise, so he recommended that consumers should look for tools that are custom-built to act as financial advisers. For banking executives, the challenge is acute, Mike Reynolds , business technology executive at KeyBank , told FinAi News . Banks face competition not just from each other, but from AI assistants that consumers consult first, he said. “We don't want anything between us and our client,” he said. “We want that direct interaction.” LLMs can’t be held accountable for financial losses from their response, but a bank works with its customers to make their financial goals attainable, he said. Banks need to improve their digital offerings and become the first place a customer comes for advice. “We have the expertise and trust, we just need to meet the customer where they are.” FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas, will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with U.S. Bank Senior Vice President – Lending Operations Group Manager Suzanne Rathbun . To learn more about the 2026 event and register, visit here .

Plaid partners with four LLMs, but AI still lags on financial advice

LLMs provide incorrect financial information 57% of time, research finds

Banking’s strong safeguards, regulations lower exposure to verification-request fraud

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Plaid partners with four LLMs, but AI still lags on financial advice

LLMs provide incorrect financial information 57% of time, research finds

Banking’s strong safeguards, regulations lower exposure to verification-request fraud

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