JPMorgan Chase stated that customers should not expect their personal AI agents to have access to their bank accounts in the short term.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon stated during a financial report conference call on Tuesday that common security concerns regarding the application of any new technology are "amplified" in the case of AI agents, "because you don't want to have out-of-control agents, and there could be tens of thousands of them." Unlike chatbots that are mainly used to answer questions, AI agents are designed to take action on behalf of users. The popularity of such tools has increased since Meta launched its personal AI assistant Muse.
Damon said, “If people are using them, they should be aware of the risks involved.” He stated that responsibility is shifting away from the banks, and there is also a risk of data being “misused.”
Damon stated that the company is developing its own proxy tools for customers, but for now, the plan is to strictly prevent external AI proxies from mass-accessing bank systems.
At the same time, we will not allow any external agents to enter the company at will, as that poses too much risk for both our customers and JPMorgan Chase, said Damon.
The chief financial officer of that bank, Jeremy Barnum, stated that the bank has been able to prevent such access "within the range we are capable of intercepting."
He said, "I believe that currently, some of the ways to provide such services are through the sharing of credentials, and we have long been opposed to this practice, such as screen scraping. It is not secure."
If a customer hands over their account credentials to the AI agent, then the customer may have to bear responsibility for any unwelcome actions taken by the agent.
Barnum said, "This is not an ideal state."
JPMorgan Chase has also tightened control over the use of AI proxies by its employees. As previously reported by Business Insider, the bank has introduced new security measures for some engineers who use Anthropic's Claude, restricting their access to employees' internal systems.
Damon's comments, along with those of Barnum, also highlight another concern: the possibility that AI agents could trigger a flow of funds from low-yield accounts to high-yield savings accounts, leading to a bank run. This theory was proposed by Apollo's chief economist, Torsten Sl øk, in late September.
Against the backdrop of turmoil in the bond market that had already caused bank stocks to decline, bank stocks have further fallen since Meta launched Muse on September 22. Barnum indicates that they observed "a certain reaction in bank stocks before and after these announcements."
Barnum believes that this concern continues two major trends that the industry has already been experiencing: 'the flow of capital in pursuit of returns' and competition from fintech companies.
He also stated that although the bank strives to "maintain the same level" as fintech companies, he believes that the traditional offline branch network of banks itself provides a layer of defense against competition.
Barnum said when talking about fintech competition: 'Our view is that, on one hand, this is nothing new; but that doesn't mean we will take it lightly.'
