Banks are warning that using artificial intelligence (AI) agents for online shopping could increase the risk of scams, fraud and data privacy breaches affecting consumers.
The warning was issued in a report by a group of banks including Bank of America, Capital One, the UK’s NatWest, New Zealand’s ASB Bank, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia and cautioned that despite enthusiasm about the potential for AI shopping agents, the tech risks outpacing consumer protections and industry standards.
“Consumers are unclear if AI will act in their interests,” the report said. “They are concerned that AI agents may buy the wrong thing or spend too much – or even worse, lose their money to scams and fraud. They are not sure whether they will be protected or who they will need to go to if things go wrong.”
Tech companies are rolling out increasingly capable AI agents to consumers, who can use them as shopping tools to track products and even make purchases on their behalf.
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British retailer John Lewis said in September that searches from AI agents rose from 0.3% last year to 2.5% this year, with the AI agent share of traffic rising.
The banks’ report warned about risks involving AI agents, including requesting customers’ card details and entering them directly into websites, or steering consumers to payment methods with weaker protections.
The banks are planning to discuss proposals with policymakers aimed at protecting consumers, like requiring disclosure when an AI agent is involved with a transaction, increased transparency over how AI agents make decisions, and safeguards to protect customer data.
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The report also said that consumers and merchants should be free to choose which AI-powered e-commerce services they use, while different systems should be interoperable.
Agentic AI systems are able to take actions and interact with other systems with a measure of autonomy granted by the user. They differ from conversational AI chatbots in that they can perform tasks, rather than simply respond to a user’s prompt by performing research.
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Reuters contributed to this report.
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