Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo, cautioned on Sunday that artificial intelligence agents like Meta’s Muse might soon transfer funds out of bank accounts offering 0.1% and redirect them toward accounts yielding as much as 5%.
Operating as assistants capable of executing tasks rather than simply answering queries, AI agents could—if adopted on a broad scale—deprive banks of the inexpensive deposits they typically use for lending, according to Sløk.
How Much a 0.1% Bank Account Costs You
Holding a $10,000 balance in a checking account with a 0.1% yield generates roughly $10 annually, whereas a 5% yield on the same amount produces about $500.
The report shared by Sløk highlights 11 online and fintech accounts offering rates from 3.3% to 5%. Adelfi leads the list at 5%, followed by SoFi at 4.5%. For comparison, the cited Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) national averages stand at 0.1% for checking and 0.4% for savings.
Banks generate a significant portion of their earnings by offering low returns to savers and lending out those funds at elevated rates.
“If every household used AI agents to optimize the return on their cash balances, banks could lose a large share of the cheap deposits they rely on to make loans, which would be a problem for the entire financial system,” read an excerpt in the report.
Can Muse Move Your Money Yet?
Meta introduced Muse on September 8. Plaid, the connectivity data firm linking the agent to upwards of 12,000 applications and US financial institutions, notes that users are able to view transaction histories, account balances, mortgage details, and investments through the platform.
Although Plaid’s announcement omits any capability for Muse to transfer funds between accounts, Sløk views this type of automated sweeping as a development that “could soon” materialize, basing his warning on the premise that households universally adopt such agents.
Attention surrounding the AI agent continues to grow. JPMorgan upgraded its price target for Meta on Thursday, suggesting Muse has the potential to turn into the most widely utilized consumer AI application since ChatGPT.
Market Watchers Say Savers Are Already Moving Cash
Chartered financial analyst Mike Zaccardi shared that he personally stores his cash in BOXX, an exchange-traded fund designed to track returns close to short-term U.S. Treasury bills.
“Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming? AI assistants are about to auto-sweep cash from 0.1% checking accounts into 5% yields. If everyone adopts them, banks lose their cheap deposit base… risking a systemic crunch,” wrote Zaccardi.
ETF Institute co-founder Nate Geraci remarked that both artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are disrupting the conventional banking structure, advocating that lawmakers choose to support the transition instead of resisting it.
Legislators in Washington are already debating who should be permitted to offer returns to savers. The question of stablecoin yield remains a point of contention in efforts to revive the Clarity Act cryptocurrency legislation, which failed a procedural vote in the Senate on September 15.
Sløk’s analysis does not provide projections regarding the total volume of funds that might shift or the timeline for such a movement.