Imagine asking an AI assistant to check your bank balance, pay a bill, or dispute a charge — and having it handle the whole thing for you. That is where banking is headed. Encore AI sent AI assistants to the websites of 18 major banks in the US and Canada to see what they could do and scored each out of 100. Not one scored higher than 65. JPMorgan Chase scored just 40. Now the company has run the same test on the biggest banks in the Gulf. Joining us is Dr. Dvir Ginzburg, CEO of Encore AI. Thank you for joining us today.
Thank you very much. Of course.
Walk us through what an AI agent that acts on your behalf actually does — and what yours tried to do when it visited these banks.
Everyone has heard of Muse, Grok Bot, and the new generation of personal assistants — moving away from cloud and OpenAI to actually being able to do things on your behalf on the internet. This is probably the biggest change era when it comes to how we use the internet. But unfortunately, most institutions are now blocking these personal assistants — not allowing them to navigate or act on our behalf.
Where do the banks fall short — and why did the biggest names score so low?
Jamie Dimon and the biggest bank CEOs in the US have declared they are blocking personal assistants. Banks that block scored the lowest. Our Agent Readiness Index simulates the top ten personal assistants and sends them to navigate, serve, and sometimes act on behalf of customers — to see where they fall short.
GCC banks averaged 34 points below US banks. Where does that gap come from?
Banks like ADCB are ahead — you can tell which banks are at least aware of the issue. While most banks are still blocking actions on behalf of customers, there are ways to make a website more prepared — at least projecting products, rates, what the bank offers — in a way that agents can read more clearly. Some banks are doing that and that is the first step. Some are not doing even that — blocking even information gathering. These are the banks falling furthest behind.
What is at stake for a bank that is not ready?
Personal assistants are going to find a way to do it whether you want them to or not. The biggest problem today is that most banks are blocking — but what personal assistants are doing is obtaining passwords elsewhere and then acting on behalf of customers without permission. That is probably the worst thing that can happen.
What should banks fix first?
First, awareness — it needs to be top of mind for the people managing digital channels. And luckily there are already protocols and regulations around these things. Regulators have actually moved ahead of the market, which is amazing. There are now ways to communicate with AI agents that make their experience easier while not exposing the bank to anything risky.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
I love it. Thank you very much.
