"There could be thousands of agents that operate abnormally."
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said the bank will not allow outside artificial intelligence agents inside the company. According to Forbes, Dimon said on the 13th during the bank's third-quarter earnings conference call that JPMorgan does not use external AI agents. He stressed that clients need to understand the risks that come with granting AI access to personal information.
Dimon said JPMorgan does use AI agents internally and that he is "neither against agents nor for them." His point was that clients must understand the shift in liability that occurs when AI is given access to their information. "We will always be on the side of the client, and we will decide how to use tools accordingly," he said, adding that clients should know if their data is being misused.
"We have to protect our clients the right way, and that is why we are building those tools," he said. "Until then, we will not let outside agents into the company, because it is risky for both the client and the bank."
A JPMorgan spokesperson confirmed that the bank currently blocks outside AI agents from carrying out tasks on behalf of individual customers.
"Protecting customers is the top priority," the spokesperson said. "Because it is not safe, we do not allow third parties to obtain customer credentials, log in on their behalf and access their accounts."
AI agents can, however, access bank accounts on a read-only basis. That allows functions such as checking balances but not transfers or payments.
Dimon criticized fintech companies in July last year over unnecessary data requests. At the time, he said data aggregators were accessing customer data multiple times a day even when customers were not actually using the apps.
JPMorgan released its third-quarter results earlier the same day. Revenue from the fixed-income markets business fell 4% from a year earlier to $5.4 billion, while net profit rose 6% to $15.3 billion. Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup also reported results the same day. JPMorgan, however, was the only one of the four largest U.S. banks to miss market expectations on both earnings per share and revenue. Earnings per share came in at $5.57, below the analyst forecast of $5.90.