Bots And Bank Accounts

Dateline: Sinaia, 30th November 2024.Picture courtesy of Mirela Ciobanu.Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong made an interesting comment on TwiX, talking about how AIs cannot get bank accounts but can get cryptowallets. He was making the point that AI agents can now use USDC on Base to transact with humans, merchants or other AIs. While it is right to say that (for now) an AI cannot open a bank account, there’s nothing to stop an AI from using a bank account to make and receive payments.Subscribe nowMoneyGPTIn fact, thanks to open banking, it is actually quite easy for them to do this. Mike Kelly, who is both an expert on the UK’s open banking infrastructure (and something of a fintech nuts and bolts guy) demonstrated this some time ago when he built a plug-in to link ChatGPT to his bank account using the UK’s open banking APIs. The plug-in, called “BankGPT” can tell you your balance, find transactions, discuss your budgeting and even make payments.Connecting bots to banks is not by any stretch of the imagination rocket science: In fact it is an inevitable progression given the interplay with open banking initiatives around the world and AI systems that are becoming increasingly agentic: That is, capable of dynamically and independently carrying out actions toward goals over extended periods of time, without humans being in the loop or pre-specifying their actions or subgoals.As McKinsey say, chatbots are just the beginning of the evolution from the current knowledge-based, generative AI-based tools—such as chatbots that…Bots And Bank Accounts