Payroll and HR software company Gusto announced on Tuesday that its app is now available in ChatGPT, providing small businesses with a way to run their payroll directly within a ChatGPT conversation.

The ability to run payroll directly through ChatGPT is currently only available to a select group of eligible customers, and Gusto plans to expand access over time, according to co-founder and CTO Eddie Kim. However, all of its customers can connect Gusto to ChatGPT to ask questions, review payroll information, and get insights using natural language, he said.

Users can do tasks such as review upcoming payroll periods, estimate payroll totals before submitting, double-check payroll details, such as getting breakdowns of labor costs and expenses by date and department, and overall, just run payroll, Gusto said. Over time, the company plans to release more capabilities, including deeper insights, reporting, and additional ways to work with data directly through the Gusto app in ChatGPT.

So how does it work? Those with access can connect their Gusto account through the Gusto app in ChatGPT and interact with payroll and business data using natural language. They can ask questions, analyze trends, and receive summaries directly in a ChatGPT conversation, and they can do so without having to export spreadsheets or run manual reports, according to the company.

When asked about any concerns about running such sensitive information on a platform such as ChatGPT, Kim told This Week in Fintech that customers must explicitly authorize the connection of their account using OAuth, so that Gusto passwords “are never shared with OpenAI (the startup that developed ChatGPT).

“Only payroll admins on a customer's account can enable the app, and all payroll actions initiated in ChatGPT are executed using only the permission scopes that the payroll admin authorized via the OAuth flow,” he added. “Customers are in the driver’s seat of how their data is used, and they can disconnect Gusto from ChatGPT at any time.”

Gusto’s goal? To make payroll more proactive, conversational, and embedded directly into the tools small businesses already use. It also helps the company be “available 24/7,” according to Kim.

“Instead of forcing small business owners to switch between systems, we're enabling them to move seamlessly from questions to insights to action, all within their natural workflow,” he said. “Allowing our customers to run payroll without leaving ChatGPT – where work is getting done and where context already lives – saves a lot of time.”

The company also claims to be among the first business applications in OpenAI's ChatGPT app directory,

Gusto says it has over 400,000 SMB customers and processes tens of billions of dollars of payroll annually. It also provides employee benefits such as health insurance and 401(k) accounts. Founded in 2012 as ZenPayroll, Gusto has raised about $750 million in funding.

AI, AI everywhere

Besides its new integration with ChatGPT, Gusto is also leveraging AI through its own AI assistant, Gus, noted Kim. The bot can do things like give “quick answers” to their most frequently asked questions and can also help execute tasks on a business owner’s behalf (with final approval).

He said Gusto chose to work with ChatGPT in this instance because “more and more business owners are turning to ChatGPT to ask questions, plan, and think through decisions.”

“It's increasingly becoming a place where small businesses are getting their work done,” Kim said. “Along with it, ChatGPT is also becoming a place where knowledge of a business is being accumulated, and the preferences of the business entrepreneur are being stored.”

Interestingly, when we asked ChatGPT what companies can run payroll within its app (prior to this news being announced), it noted that businesses can’t natively run complete payroll entirely inside ChatGPT by itself without a connected payroll provider – but that some companies are actively building or enabling integrations that let users initiate or manage payroll-related work via ChatGPT in conjunction with their platforms.

For example, it said that Intuit has partnered with OpenAI to integrate apps like QuickBooks, QuickBooks Payroll, TurboTax, and others directly into ChatGPT. This means business users will be able to link their Intuit accounts and ask ChatGPT to help with financial tasks, including payroll management and payroll-related questions, without leaving the ChatGPT interface. (We found confirmation of this on OpenAI’s site.)

It also noted that there are third-party connectors and automation tools, via workflows such as Zapier or custom API integrations, that let businesses link Paychex Flex payroll data with ChatGPT workflows. 

A key point to understand, according to ChatGPT, is interesting: “ChatGPT alone doesn’t replace payroll software — it’s increasingly becoming an interface or assistant layered over traditional payroll platforms.”