As Meta’s Muse reignites fears over artificial intelligence-driven deposit flight, Jamie Dimon on Tuesday said bank customers using AI agents need to understand the risks.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon speaks at The Institute Of International Finance annual membership meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building on October 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon cautioned customers Tuesday that if they’re giving artificial intelligence agents access to their bank accounts, they’re owning that decision.
The comments from the CEO of the biggest U.S. bank come just weeks after Meta’s AI assistant Muse debuted, reigniting conversation around AI-cash sorting concerns for lenders.
“You’ve got to make sure customers aren’t hurt by it, and so that is of concern,” Dimon said during the bank’s third-quarter earnings call. “You don’t want rogue agents, and there could be thousands of them.”
“If people are using them, they should understand the risk,” the CEO said. “There’s a liability transfer. They should understand the liability transfer. If data is being misused, they should understand it’s being misused.”
“We have to make sure we protect our customer in the right kind of way. So we’re building tools to do that, too,” Dimon said. “In the meantime, we’re not going to allow just any outside agent to come in inside the company because it’s too risky for the clients and for JPMorgan.”
Consulting firm McKinsey warned in April that retail banks may face disintermediation of their relationships with customers if AI agents acting on consumers’ behalf move money in pursuit of better rates.
For its part, JPMorgan’s AI-powered Smart Cash tool – which moves customer money between accounts at the New York City-based bank to maximize yield and manage cash flow – is in pilot, CFO Jeremy Barnum said Tuesday.
“The strategic question is not whether AI pulls deposits out of checking, but who owns the agent, the wallet and ultimately the customer relationship,” Bank of America Securities analyst Ebrahim Poonawala said in a Sept. 23 note.
Regulators should also consider how agentic AI’s potential impact on deposits could affect liquidity risk management, Dimon said.
“It’s a new world,” and “with all these bots and agents and stuff like that, could someone get hurt and cause a problem? Maybe. If I was a regulator, I’d try to be prepared for that,” Dimon said.
Bank executives also faced AI expense-related questions Tuesday, as the industry begins to feel pressure to show return on AI investment while costs have soared. Last year, Dimon said the bank’s annual AI-generated savings of $2 billion roughly equal what it spends yearly on the technology.
Asked for updated figures Tuesday, Barnum put the bank’s annual AI spending somewhere closer to $700 million, not $2 billion, but also said that figure is “a little stale at this point.”
