Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk warned that AI agents such as Meta’s Muse could shift household cash into higher-yield accounts, putting pressure on banks’ low-cost deposits.
Key Points:
- Sløk says AI agents could redirect cash from checking accounts averaging 0.1% toward online accounts offering 3.3% to 5%.
- A $10,000 balance would earn about $10 a year at 0.1%, compared with roughly $500 at 5%.
- Muse can connect to financial accounts through Plaid, but the disclosed integration does not explicitly say it can automatically transfer money between banks.
Sløk Deposit Warning
Sløk said in a Sep. 27 Apollo note that widespread use of AI agents could make shopping for deposit yields much easier. Apollo listed 11 fintech and online accounts paying between 3.3% and 5%, while the FDIC national averages cited were 0.4% for savings and 0.1% for checking.
On a $10,000 balance, the difference between 0.1% and 5% is about $490 in annual interest. Banks commonly use deposits to fund lending, so a large and rapid shift toward higher-yield accounts could increase funding pressure.
“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,” Sløk wrote.
Meta launched Muse on Sep. 8, with Plaid providing connections to financial accounts. Plaid says the integration lets users access balances, transactions, investments and mortgage information, but its announcement does not explicitly say Muse can sweep cash between bank accounts.
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Zaccardi Cash Shift
Mike Zaccardi, a chartered financial analyst, said he already keeps his own cash in BOXX, an exchange-traded fund designed to seek returns close to short-term Treasury bills. His point is that savers do not need AI to search for better yields, although agents could make that behavior faster and more automatic.
Nate Geraci, co-founder of the ETF Institute, said AI and crypto are both challenging the traditional banking model. JPMorgan has separately highlighted growing consumer interest in Muse, saying the agent could become the most widely used consumer AI application since ChatGPT.
Sløk did not estimate how much money could move or how quickly. His warning also depends on broad household adoption, making the potential scale uncertain even if AI agents eventually gain authority to transfer funds.
Muse itself remains an early example of that shift. Since its Sep. 8 launch, Meta has promoted it as an agent that can act across connected services, while the current Plaid integration shows financial-account access without clearly establishing automatic bank-to-bank cash sweeping.
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