Axios Live: AI agents are changing how money moves
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Alpaca's Yoshi Yokokawa on stage at an Oct. 20 Axios Live event. Photo: Steven Joseph Fogarty for Axios
LAS VEGAS — The proliferation of AI agents in banking and trading is presenting unresolved questions about reliability, liability and regulations, financial experts said at an Axios event.
Why it matters: Introducing AI into commerce could streamline aspects of the consumer experience across banking, shopping and trading; however, establishing trust in the agents is still a work in progress.
Axios' Ryan Lawler and Lucinda Shen spoke to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chairman Travis Hill and Alpaca co-founder and CEO Yoshi Yokokawa. The Oct. 20 event was sponsored by J.P. Morgan.
What they're saying: Hill pointed to the advent of advanced technology as helping to streamline banking. "It's very easy for consumers to move money around to different banks," he said.
- But as agents gain more power to move money, "there's just a big question of to what extent are depositors going to delegate that type of decision-making authority to these types of agents," Hill added.
Case in point: "Who is liable when something happens, when the agents go rogue and start doing some criminal activity, or even just do some bad trade and lose money?" Yokokawa posited when discussing restrictions on fully automated trading through his fintech company's platform.
- Yokokawa also cautioned against completely relying on agents to conduct financial trades. Consumers assuming agents have the ability to make them a lot of money is "very dangerous," he said.
Friction point: As debate over AI regulation continues, Hill explained why his agency's model risk management guidance does not apply to agentic AI and generative AI as the FDIC considers future guidelines for the technology.
- "This is a very rapidly evolving area, and so I think trying to make sure that we're on the one hand … staying current … with that evolution, but also being thoughtful and deliberative about it," Hill said.
Content from the sponsor's segment:
During a View From the Top conversation, J.P. Morgan chief data and analytics officer for Payments and Global Banking Zack Anderson spoke about the potential for agentic commerce to simplify purchasing, while also acknowledging safety concerns.
- "It's easy, actually, right now to get a bot or an agent to make a payment. … [T]he problem is, it's really hard to do reliably and safe."
