NotebookLM is the wrong tool for money
NotebookLM is genuinely impressive at what it’s designed to do, but it’s also useful beyond summaries and retrieval. I’ve used it to help me learn how to self-host, to streamline my design workflow, to learn new software, and even as a journal. So it’s pretty clear that NotebookLM shines even with off-label use cases. However, something I haven’t used it for, and probably never will, is my finances.
I’ve seen people use it for their finances and, while I can see the benefits of using it to help with budgeting, I’ve always felt a little uneasy about it. For starters, there is a safety issue that’s hard to ignore: financial data is more sensitive than learning materials. Sorting through your financial information also has different requirements than study notes. When it comes down to it, using an AI research tool as a financial system introduces risks, and they may not be obvious at first. Here’s why I wouldn’t take that risk…
Privacy and data exposure
AI tools aren’t financial vaults
Financial data isn’t just another set of notes, it’s sensitive and tied to your real life. So uploading things like bank statements, investment details, income, budgets, or bank card information to a Google-backed AI tool means you’re handing over some of your most personal data to an external system you don’t control or fully understand. As per this publication in The Verge, Google products have previously faced settlements over data collection and privacy practices, including allegations over tracking user activity even after privacy settings were enabled. As much as I like and use many of Google’s products, this isn’t a risk I’m willing to take when it comes to finances.
Financial records also contain personally identifiable info that could be used for things like identity theft or unauthorized transactions if it’s accessed by the wrong party. Security researchers and privacy experts specifically advise against uploading this type of data to general-purpose cloud services because the risks simply outweigh whatever convenience you might get.
