Apollo economist warns AI could shift bank deposits

Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok warned that widespread use of artificial intelligence agents to optimize household cash could shift deposits from low-yield checking accounts to higher-yield alternatives, weakening a source of low-cost funding banks rely on to make loans. The warning describes a possible future risk, not evidence that AI agents are currently triggering mass withdrawals. In a note titled Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming?, Slok compared the roughly 0.1% average interest rate on U.S. checking accounts with rates of 3.3% to 5% offered by some alternative accounts. He said agents could eventually compare returns and move household cash automatically, reducing the effort consumers now face when switching accounts. The potential impact would depend on how widely people adopt such tools and where the money goes. Transfers from one bank to another would redistribute deposits across institutions, while moves into money-market funds, Treasury securities or other assets outside bank deposits would remove funds from banks altogether. The amount of money agents might move, and the destinations of any transfers, remain unknown.