Which AI Model Reads Your Transactions? How Bills AI Uses OpenAI

Which AI Model Reads Your Bank Transactions?

Large language models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google can all read a transaction line and suggest a category. Bills AI uses OpenAI (gpt-4o-mini) for this. It does not offer a choice of model, and we have not run or published a benchmark comparing providers, so this page makes no accuracy or speed claims about any of them.

What the Model Does in Bills AI

1. Extraction: The text of your statement is read and turned into a list of transactions
2. Categorization: Each transaction gets a suggested category such as groceries, transportation or subscriptions
3. Insights: Notes and summaries are generated from the parsed transactions

What This Means for Your Data

Because OpenAI performs the analysis, the extracted statement text (which can include names, addresses and account numbers) is sent to OpenAI, and images you upload are sent to OpenAI so the text can be read. Your original file is not stored by Bills AI. See the privacy policy for what we keep and for how long.

How to Judge Any AI Categorization

• Check unusual merchants: Local or abbreviated merchant names are the likeliest to be misread
• Check transfers and payments: They are easy to confuse with spending
• Spot-check totals: Compare the totals and a sample of transactions with your original statement
• Correct what's wrong: Treat AI output as a first draft