Sharing your credit score with AI? What you need to know to stay protected

It's no secret that more and more Americans are turning to AI to help them with their personal finances. In fact, over half of consumers (55%) report using AI to aid their financial management decisions, according to TD Bank's AI Insights Report. This number is up from 10% last year, and the data suggests consumers aren't just experimenting — they're increasingly relying on AI for more advanced financial tasks.

Two-thirds of consumers are most comfortable with AI helping perform functions like fraud detection, tracking spending and calculating credit scores, TD Bank found. But this begs the question: Should you be sharing personal finance information like your credit score with AI chatbots? Here's what to know.

With any information that you feed AI chatbots, Rod Griffin, senior director of consumer education and advocacy for Experian, encourages caution. This is especially true for sharing your personal finances.

While Griffin asserts that there may not be harm in sharing your credit score number itself, he warns consumers that they should refrain from sharing information about what's on their credit report, especially account numbers. Since your information may be used in ways you're not comfortable with, you should always read the terms of service and privacy policies when using an AI platform.

"Anytime you're working on AI, you need to be thoughtful about what you share and understand how that information may be used and where it might be shared beyond that conversation that you're having," Griffin explains.

Never share personally identifiable information or specifics like account numbers. AI platforms, like other forms of technology, can be targets of data breaches and that may put your personal information you shared at risk.

There's no way to fully shield your personal information when using tools like AI chatbots, but you can take steps to better protect it. Both identity theft protection and credit monitoring services, in particular, offer added layers of security by helping you catch suspicious activity early.

PrivacyGuard is one service that combines both credit and ID protection all in one. The platform also provides unique features like a dedicated identity fraud resolution agent, neighborhood reports, emergency travel assistance and medical records reimbursement.

With IdentityForce, all plans get dark web scanning, plus users will have their information on things like court records and activity on social media monitored. They'll also get alerts about financial fraud, misuse of their medical ID and Social Security number.

If you care most about your credit score, all Experian IdentityWorks users receive updates to their FICO Score 8, the score many lenders tend to use. Plus, the platform offers a free version.

All Identity Guard plans include $1 million in identity theft insurance, plus users get data breach notifications and monitoring of high-risk transactions, bank accounts, social media and more.

Lastly, LifeLock is great for protecting your devices as it can monitor PCs, Macs, tablets and phones. While the service automatically monitors the dark web for your email address (and sends you alerts), you can add other personal information to look out for like your bank account numbers.

At CNBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority, grounded in relevant training and/or experience. For this story, we interviewed Rod Griffin, senior director of consumer education and advocacy for Experian.

At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every identity theft protection and credit monitoring article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of id protection and credit monitoring products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics.

Catch up on CNBC Select's in-depth coverage of credit cards, banking and money, and follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to stay up to date.