TikTok's CEO says people are going all in on AI agents without understanding how they work

"A lot of users may be giving permissions to the agents to do a lot of things for them, without really understanding what kind of permissions you have actually given," Chew said, speaking at a conference organized by DBS Bank in Singapore on Monday.

For example, he said that agents who have been given credit card information to purchase items for users may be "overly eager to deliver," and end up buying much more than they were asked to.

The executive added that TikTok is training its staff on what information they should not include in public chats with AI agents, such as trade secrets or privileged legal information.

"So people, you know, sometimes are over enthusiastic about how they use it," he said. "So I think understanding, you know, where the boundaries of what is reasonable and acceptable use, is important."

Chew made these comments at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference, whose theme centered on how AI could be implemented in Asia to create real value. During his fireside chat, he also talked about how he uses AI as a diet coach and to answer medical questions.

Personal AI agents have seen a boom in the past few months, with the introduction of tools like Meta's Muse assistant, SpaceXAI's Grok Bot, OpenAI's Dots, and the startup Instinct's AI agents.