How to Connect Interactive Brokers to an AI Assistant

Connecting Interactive Brokers to an AI assistant means giving an assistant like ChatGPT or Claude permission to see your real IBKR holdings, so its answers are about your actual portfolio instead of hypothetical examples. The AI does not log into Interactive Brokers directly. Instead, a secure aggregator sits in the middle: you authenticate with IBKR through Interactive Brokers' own flow, the aggregator receives scoped access, and the AI tool reads your positions through the aggregator.

The default state is read-only. For Interactive Brokers, the access goes a step further than analysis: IBKR supports trade-if-available, so a connected assistant can also prepare orders that bring your account toward your targets. Nothing is sent to the broker until you confirm it. That makes Interactive Brokers a strong fit both for AI-driven tracking and for AI-assisted, human-approved execution. IBKR sits alongside brokers like E*Trade, Public, tastytrade and Webull that support order placement through an aggregator, and apart from read-only-only connections like Robinhood.

There are four practical ways to get your Interactive Brokers holdings in front of an AI assistant, ordered here from most accessible to most technical.

• 1. An MCP connector backed by an aggregator. A Model Context Protocol connector exposes your IBKR account to Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, or Cursor, so the assistant itself can read your positions live and prepare approved trades. The connector links Interactive Brokers through a regulated aggregator, so your login stays at IBKR. Walnut offers a portfolio-aware MCP connector that does exactly this. Best if you already work inside an AI client.
• 2. A purpose-built app that uses an aggregator. A hosted AI investing app connects your IBKR account securely and adds an assistant you talk to, with no code. You log in at Interactive Brokers, the app reads your holdings, and you ask questions through Claude, ChatGPT, or a built-in assistant. Best for most people. Walnut works this way too.
• 3. A developer or community MCP server against IBKR's own API. Interactive Brokers has a long-standing, strong developer API with broad market access, and because IBKR is a favorite of technical traders, the developer community has built open-source MCP servers and connectors that expose an IBKR account to Claude, ChatGPT, or a custom agent for read and, where enabled, trade. These are powerful but developer- oriented and mostly community-maintained rather than official, so you self-host and update them yourself. Best if you are a developer who wants direct, single-broker control over IBKR.
• 4. Manual copy-paste. You paste a list of your IBKR holdings into ChatGPT or Claude by hand. It works for a one-time snapshot, but prices go stale immediately, you have to keep re-pasting, and long lists invite arithmetic mistakes. Fine for a quick look, weak for ongoing analysis.

For a deeper comparison of connector options, see the best MCP connectors for brokerages. If you hold accounts at more than one broker, a multi-broker connector usually beats wiring up IBKR's API on its own, since it reads every account in one place.

Walnut connects Interactive Brokers through a regulated aggregator, so your IBKR login is never stored by Walnut and your password stays at Interactive Brokers. The connection is read-only by default and trade-if-available with your approval. The flow takes a few clicks:

1. Create a Walnut account and open the brokerage-connection screen.
2. Pick Interactive Brokers from the list of supported brokers.
3. Log in at Interactive Brokers. Walnut opens IBKR's own authentication flow, so your password is entered at Interactive Brokers and never seen by Walnut.
4. Authorize access. The connection is read-only by default and trade-if-available, so the assistant can analyze your holdings and, with your approval, place orders.
5. Start chatting. Ask about your holdings, performance versus the S&P 500, or concentration, through Claude, ChatGPT, or Walnut's built-in assistant.
6. Revoke any time. Disconnect Interactive Brokers from Walnut's connections screen, or revoke the authorization from your IBKR security settings, and the access stops.

Because IBKR supports trade-if-available, Walnut can also prepare the trades that would bring a portfolio to its target weights and surface them for your confirmation. Nothing is sent to Interactive Brokers until you approve it. If you only want analysis, leave it read-only. To work inside your own AI client instead, you can use Walnut from there by adding its MCP server URL, https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp, as a custom connector in Claude, ChatGPT, or Codex, then signing in with a free Walnut account and approving read-only access (it never places trades on its own). The full per-client setup lives on the Walnut MCP connector page.

Once Interactive Brokers is connected, the assistant can answer questions about your real positions instead of hypothetical ones. Useful prompts include:

• “How is my IBKR portfolio doing versus the S&P 500?” Each holding framed against a benchmark, as a window return rather than realized profit and loss (broker feeds rarely pass cost basis).
• “Where am I most concentrated?” Which positions dominate the account and how lopsided the mix is.
• “Which of my holdings are lagging?” Relative performance across your positions, surfaced in plain language.
• “What themes does my Interactive Brokers account lean into?” Whether your holdings cluster around AI, semiconductors, or another theme.
• “Explain why this position moved.” Context on a specific ticker you hold, pulled from live data and the wider web.

The assistant reads and analyzes, and because IBKR is trade-if-available, it can also prepare orders you approve. You can ask about a specific stock or a theme you want exposure to, framed against your real holdings.

This is where Interactive Brokers differs from a read-only-only broker like Robinhood. Through a regulated aggregator, the IBKR connection is read-only by default and trade-if-available. Read-only means the assistant can see your positions but cannot move money. Trade-if-available means that, when you want it to, the assistant can prepare orders, and you confirm each one before it reaches Interactive Brokers.

The approval step is not optional. An AI assistant connected to IBKR does not silently place trades; it proposes the orders that would bring your account toward your stated targets, and you are the one who clicks to send them. That keeps a human in the loop on every order while still letting the assistant do the analysis and the math. If you never want trades placed at all, the read-only default already covers tracking and analysis on its own.

Interactive Brokers is a power-user broker with a strong API and broad market access, which is exactly why it has two distinct routes to an AI assistant. Getting the choice right is mostly about whether you write code and whether IBKR is your only account.

Route A, the no-code path (a tool like Walnut). You connect Interactive Brokers securely in a few clicks, your login stays at IBKR, then talk to your real holdings through Claude, ChatGPT, or a built-in assistant. There is no server to run, credentials stay at IBKR, the connection is read-only by default and trade-if-available with your approval, and the same connector reads any other brokers you hold, so one assistant sees your whole portfolio. This suits most people, and especially anyone who holds accounts beyond IBKR: a multi-broker connector reads every account in one place, where a single-broker integration only ever sees IBKR.

Route B, the developer path (a community MCP server against IBKR's API). Because IBKR's developer API is deep and widely used, the community has built open-source MCP servers and connectors that wire an IBKR account directly into Claude, ChatGPT, or a custom agent for read and, where enabled, trade. This gives you the most control and the fullest access to IBKR's markets, but it is developer-oriented: you self-host, you secure it, and most of these connectors are community-maintained rather than officially supported by Interactive Brokers. This suits a developer who trades only through IBKR and wants to own the integration.

The honest split: Route A for a no-code, whole-portfolio view across brokers with human-approved trades; Route B for a developer locked to IBKR who wants direct, code-first control. If you are not sure which brokers support an assistant at all, see which brokers have an AI assistant, or the best MCP connectors for brokerages for a wider look at the connector options.

It can be safe, and the security model rests on three things. First, credential handling: through a regulated aggregator, your IBKR login is entered at Interactive Brokers' own authentication flow and is never stored by the AI tool. Second, scope: the connection is read-only by default, and trade-if-available only ever prepares orders you approve, so the assistant cannot move money on its own. Third, control: you can revoke the connection at any time, from the app's connections screen or from your IBKR account security settings.

The pattern to avoid is any tool that asks for your Interactive Brokers password directly rather than routing you through the broker's own login. The Model Context Protocol, the open standard introduced by Anthropic in late 2024, was designed around scoped, permissioned access, which fits a read-by-default, approve-to-trade IBKR connection well. For the full safety walkthrough, see is it safe to connect your brokerage to an AI. Confirm the tool routes you through a regulated aggregator, confirm you control the access scope, and confirm you can revoke it before you connect.

To connect Interactive Brokers to an AI assistant: pick a tool that connects your broker securely through a regulated aggregator, create an account, choose Interactive Brokers from the broker list, log in through IBKR's own flow, and authorize access. From there you ask Claude, ChatGPT, or a built-in assistant about your real holdings. With Walnut, the same connection also works as a portfolio-aware MCP connector if you prefer to stay inside Claude Desktop. The connection is read-only by default and trade-if-available, so the AI analyzes by default and only places orders you approve. If you also want to see which other brokers support an assistant, see which brokers have an AI assistant.

You connect Interactive Brokers to an AI assistant through a secure, regulated aggregator, which exposes your real holdings to ChatGPT or Claude so the assistant's answers are about your actual portfolio. IBKR connects read-only by default and trade-if-available, so the AI analyzes your holdings and, only with your approval, places orders. Interactive Brokers also has its own developer API and in-platform AI features, which suit a developer locked to one broker; a multi-broker connector like Walnut adds value when you also hold accounts elsewhere and want a no-code, whole-portfolio view. Walnut connects Interactive Brokers securely and lets you analyze your real holdings through Claude, ChatGPT, or a built-in assistant, with the connection revocable at any time. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

The connection is to Walnut, and the assistant then reads Walnut, so the same setup works in every client that supports remote MCP servers rather than needing a separate integration each time. The server URL is:

https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp

Verified today: Claude (Desktop, claude.ai and Claude Code), ChatGPT (Developer Mode on a paid plan), Codex and the Codex CLI, and Cursor. ForPerplexity, Gemini, Grok and Copilotwe do not verify custom connector support, so that page explains how to check yours in under a minute rather than giving steps that may not apply.

Step-by-step:ClaudeorChatGPT.

Interactive Brokers accounts often span several currencies and markets, so the aggregate view is doing more work than usual. Every question below is answered against the positions in the account rather than from general knowledge.

Portfolio analysis

• “How has my Interactive Brokers account done against the S&P 500 this year?”
• “What share of it sits in my single largest holding?”

Research

• “What does my largest holding actually do, and why might it have moved this week?”

Cost

• “What is my weighted average expense ratio across this account?”

Rebalancing

• “How far has each position drifted from its target weight?”

Planning a purchase

• “If I added $500 to this idea, would I be more concentrated or less?”

More inwhat to ask once it can see your portfolio. If you hold accounts elsewhere too, connect those as well: seeRobinhood, E*TRADE or Webull.