Former Meta Security Chief Calls Giving AI Access to Finances ‘Insane’

It’s plain nuts to hand over the keys to your financial life to an AI agent, according to Meta’s former security chief Alex Stamos, now the chief security officer for AI coding startup Cognition.

On a recent episode of the “Big Technology Podcast,” Stamos called it “totally insane” that people are giving AI agent apps access to highly sensitive personal data. He cited examples such as Meta’s Muse and Spear Street Technology’s Instinct, which users are granting full access to their 1Password vaults to manage finances and file taxes.

This practice, said Stamos, has created a dilemma for banks that are now grappling with a growing wave of customer authorized bot activity. “So that’s what the banks are talking about is that they now see all of these interactions with them that are authenticated correctly — so they’re not stolen credentials — but are clearly bots doing interaction,” he explained.

According to Stamos, Instinct’s popularity is partly due to its ability to bypass safety protections in place to prevent such bot activity. “That’s why Instinct is useful because it will effectively bypass the safety protections that are in place at these companies to keep you from doing exactly what you’re doing, which is to have your bot interact with the most important parts of your life,” he said.

The result, said Stamos, is a “crazy tension” between financial institutions trying to prevent automated access to systems and consumers who want to simplify their lives by turning over their logins and personal information to a company that has existed for only six months.

Representatives for Instinct did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stamos’ remarks. A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.

Meta previously said in a blog post that Muse, launched in September, runs on its own computer in the cloud, so no other agent can access it. This statement was part of Meta’s efforts to address concerns about data security and privacy.

In recent weeks, some bank CEOs have sounded the alarm about consumers granting third party AI agents access to their financial accounts. “If people are using them, they should understand the risk,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said during an October earnings call. He added that there’s a “liability transfer” away from the bank, as well as risks that their data is “misused.” Dimon also mentioned that JPMorgan is developing its own agentic tools for clients, while guarding the bank from outside agents.

The growing debate over the use of AI agents in financial management highlights the complex challenges facing both consumers and financial institutions in an increasingly automated digital landscape.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/former-meta-security-chief-ai-agents-access-logins-insane-2026-11