Are we dealing with immature AI bots who don’t know what they’re doing, or immature banks who are panicking?
When we introduce any new technology there are always growing pains. Many of us don’t understand how the technology works and we need to adjust our behaviors. As I’ve said before, business problems are tougher than technology problems. We can technically do many things…but do we want to?
Royal Bank of Canada blocks personal AI agents
Take bots and banking. We can remove the drudgery of banking operations by assigning an AI agent to perform our banking for us.
Well…unless you bank with the Royal Bank of Canada, which is banning the bots:
“Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has decided to block third-party personal AI agents from direct access to online banking and other RBC digital properties due to concerns about fraud and consumer harm.”
“…as these systems become more autonomous, the stakes go up when something goes wrong—from fraud and consumer harm to risks that could ripple more broadly through the financial system. That’s why, after careful consideration and based on what we know today, RBC has decided to block third-party personal AI agents from direct access to authenticated RBC digital properties including online banking.”
Traditional banks tend to act conservatively, so it’s not surprising that this bank is leery of personal AI agents. Some consider this a tacit admission that RBC is not ready to integrate the new technology yet.
Then again, is anybody? Is your local bleeding edge financial rockstar entity truly prepared for what AI agents can do?
Proof suggests a solution
The identity company Proof is monitoring these bot blocks and thinks there is a better way. Proof acknowledges the problem that threw Royal Bank of Canada (and Amazon) into a frenzy:
“There is no reliable way to know who an AI agent is acting on behalf of, or whether that person authorized what it is doing.”
Taking FinCEN’s verifiable credentials clarifications into account, Proof launched a new product.
“Proof became the first company to put verified legal identity and transaction authorization for AI agents into production with the launch of x401, an open protocol that lets any website ask an AI agent to prove who it’s acting for and what that person approved. Proof works with Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT dots, Grok, Claude and other assistants that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP).”
Is this enough to calm RBC and Amazon? We’ll see.
