Artificial intelligence assistants such as Meta Platforms Inc.’s Muse could put the financial system at risk if consumers start heavily relying on them to shift cash into higher-yielding accounts, according to Apollo Global Management Inc. Chief Economist Torsten Slok.

“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,” Slok said in a note on Sunday titled, “Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming?”

AI assistants may soon move cash into accounts paying 3.3% to 5.0%, instead of the 0.1% national average on checking accounts, Slok said. He also cited several fintech companies offering higher rates on deposits than banks, including SoFi Technologies Inc., which offers 4.5% on deposits, as well as LendingClub, now known as Happen Inc.

Meta stock surged earlier this month after the release of Muse, which quickly rose to the top of app charts. In recent years, traditional banks had faced pressure from online-only banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Marcus and Ally Financial Inc., which were able to offer some of the highest rates in the industry without the fixed costs of branches holding them back.

The rapid adoption of Muse revives “the risk that agentic AI erodes the customer inertia underpinning low-cost deposits,” Ebrahim Poonawala, an analyst at Bank of America Corp., said in a note last week. “Whereas a chatbot can tell customers they are earning too little, an agent can identify excess liquidity, compare yields and act.”

Shares of major banks slid last week on those concerns, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. each dropping more than 3% on Tuesday.

Written by: Felice Maranz @Bloomberg

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