JPMorgan Chase will not let outside artificial intelligence agents act inside customers' accounts, CEO Jamie Dimon said Oct. 13 during the bank's third-quarter earnings call, calling such tools too risky for clients and for the bank.
"You don't want rogue agents, and there could be thousands of them," Dimon said, according to Banking Dive. He said customers who give an AI agent access to their accounts are making that choice themselves. "If people are using them, they should understand the risk," he said. "There's a liability transfer. They should understand the liability transfer."
A bank spokeswoman told CNBC that JPMorgan does not allow third parties to take a customer's banking login and use it to act for them. Agents can still see some account information, such as balances, on a read-only basis when a data connector like Plaid holds the customer's credentials, but they cannot move money or pay bills. The bank gave no timeline for safeguards that would let outside agents do more.
The bank's own tools
Dimon said JPMorgan is using AI internally and building protective tools of its own. Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said the bank is piloting Smart Cash, an AI-driven tool that forecasts customers' cash flow and moves money between accounts to earn more yield.
Dimon also said regulators should be ready for possible harm from AI agents, including effects on bank deposits. "Maybe. If I was a regulator, I'd try to be prepared for that," he said.
