Big Banks Say They’re Uneasy About People Shopping via AI Agents

In a paper published Tuesday, six major global banks, including Bank of America and Capital One, warned that agentic shopping has “risks spanning transparency, safety, privacy & data, choice, and interoperability” that increase “as greater autonomy is given to AI agents.”

AI developers, as well as various retailers and major payment processors, have been working to unveil agentic commerce chatbots, aka AI agents that promise to completely automate the process of online shopping. But adoption has been trickier to quantify. Some consumers use AI chatbots to find stuff or get information on what to buy when shopping online, but many still feel reluctant to let the agents roam free on the internet with access to their entire fortune.

“Consumers are unclear if AI agents will act in their interests,” the report says. “They are concerned that AI agents may buy the wrong thing or spend too much – or even worse, lose their money to scams and fraud.”

Many tech experts also don’t seem to hold total faith in the future of agentic commerce.

Ron Johnson, the former Apple executive behind the original brick-and-mortar Apple Stores, told TechCrunch in a recent interview that he believes AI “will improve the online shopping experience,” but it won’t actually change the “way we shop.”