Gusto brings payroll tools & insights into ChatGPT

Gusto has made its app available in ChatGPT, giving small businesses a way to access payroll information and other account data through a conversational interface.

The company said small business owners and administrators can connect their Gusto account through the Gusto app in ChatGPT. They can then ask questions and request summaries and trend analysis inside a ChatGPT conversation. Gusto positioned the integration as an alternative to exporting spreadsheets and compiling manual reports.

Gusto also said some customers can run payroll from inside ChatGPT. The company said this option currently sits with a select group of customers, and it plans to expand availability over time.

Gusto cited its own research on AI adoption among small businesses. It said four out of five small businesses that adopt AI effectively see productivity increases of 20%. It also said more than 40% see revenue growth.

Everyday workflows

Gusto described payroll as a time-sensitive task for many smaller firms. It said payroll work often includes time sheets, tax checks, and overtime calculations. It also said businesses can spend significant time auditing before approval.

The Gusto app in ChatGPT offers what the company described as real-time guidance supported by AI. It said connected customers can use natural language prompts to interpret payroll questions. It also said users can review business and people trends and step through tasks such as payroll preparation.

Gusto gave examples of the types of queries users can make. It said businesses can view estimated costs for an upcoming payroll period. It also said they can request a breakdown of labour costs and expenses by date and department.

The company also described a prompt for payroll processing inside the chat interface. It said eligible users can begin with: "@Gusto, help me run payroll."

Capabilities and limitations

Accountant and automation specialist Chad Davis said Gusto ChatGPT integration currently divides its functionality into two main categories: reading data and, for a select group of users, writing or executing payroll actions.

"You can read, and you can write in the reading section. You essentially can get guidance, ask for trends, ask for information about historical pay runs and all the information that exists inside of your system, which could include employee details," said Davis.

In information Retrieval (Read), he said every user with the integration has access to the "read" area, which enables them to obtain advice, enquire about trends, and obtain information about past pay runs and employee details that are stored in their system. Users can access six primary kinds of questions once they are connected.

He said the integration also offers "writing" capabilities to a particular subset of beta testers. Advanced payroll operations, such as examining upcoming pay periods, predicting payroll totals, verifying pay details, and executing payroll directly through the interface, can be initiated by these specific customers.

Davies also highlighted constraints on who can access advanced actions. He said some product materials showed payroll execution inside ChatGPT, but he characterised the feature as restricted at this stage.

"You can now chat with Gusto data inside of ChatGPT through the new app integration, But this first version comes with a lot of limitations," said Davis.

"So first, they're showing images of running payroll on their website, but this feature is only available for a select few customers right now. And that's not actually what you get out-of-the-box when you first connect it," he added.

He also noted that after the integration is linked, OpenAI's privacy policies, not Gusto's, apply to your data. He strongly advised that users go to ChatGPT's data controls and disable the "improve the model for everyone" setting to prevent their data from being utilised to train OpenAI's models in order to safeguard confidential company information.

He mentioned Gusto's internal AI assistant, "Gus," is not the same as the integration. Internal tools or built-in reports might be more appropriate than entering data into ChatGPT for things like comparing current payroll to prior ones. He said "Gus" preserves context for every item in a customer record, which the external integration might handle in a different way.

Roadmap signals

Gusto said it will release additional features over time. It pointed to deeper insights and reporting. It also referenced additional ways for customers to work with Gusto data from inside ChatGPT.

The company framed the first stage as a conversational interface plus payroll execution for a limited group of customers, with broader access expected to expand over time.