The Pittsburgh-based regional bank has made big bets on AI internally. But Bill Demchak said agents transacting could “mess with people’s lives.”

LAS VEGAS – Artificial intelligence agent-only financial transactions will never happen, PNC CEO Bill Demchak said Monday.

“No [bank] is going to let people transact inside of accounts without a human in the loop. It’s just not going to happen – and if somebody does, they'll be defrauded,” he said during an appearance at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas. Then “you’ll read about it in the paper.”

PNC is making an aggressive AI push, building out what Demchak has previously called its “own AI factory.”

The bank has paused its major mergers-and-acquisitions efforts to avoid slowing its AI progress in a way that could “destroy massive value,” the CEO said during the bank’s third-quarter earnings call last week.

But at Money20/20 on Monday, Demchak warned that agents transacting without a human control function could “mess with people’s lives.”

Technology companies like Meta, which launched its personal AI agent Muse six weeks ago, would need to hold themselves liable for any issues caused by agentic transactions, Demchak suggested.

“There'd have to be a massive liability shift that these guys took on the liability associated with breaking all the crap they're about to break,” Demchak said. “They’re kids in a room with a new toy and they're messing around with money … This isn't a game. This isn't like normal technology where you're allowed to break stuff and figure it out later.

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