“Incumbents have a lot of leverage here, provided that we respond,” Tim Spence said Monday during the Cincinnati-based regional bank’s earnings call.

The banks most at risk related to artificial intelligence-driven cash optimization concerns are online-only lenders – “the ones that have nothing but pricing defining their value propositions,” Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence said Monday.

“For the rest of us, there's enough interplay here,” whether that’s physical distribution and branches or added value within certain products and services, Spence said during the bank’s third-quarter earnings call.

The launch of Meta’s AI assistant Muse has reignited conversation around agentic AI cash sorting concerns for lenders and the threat such activity could pose to their deposit businesses. Citi and Bank of America have joined JPMorgan Chase in blocking customers’ external AI agents from accessing bank accounts, Financial Times reported.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said consumers need to understand the risks of using AI agents, because “there’s a liability transfer.”

“You’ve got to make sure customers aren’t hurt by it, and so that is of concern,” Dimon said during the bank’s third-quarter earnings call Oct. 13. “You don’t want rogue agents, and there could be thousands of them.”

On Monday, Fifth Third CFO Bryan Preston said concerns around AI-driven cash optimization are “likely overblown” and adoption timelines probably accelerated, but the $301 billion-asset bank isn’t dismissing the issue.

Fifth Third’s median household checking account balance is $3,000, so there’s little excess that might be moved around in search of higher yield, Preston said.

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