AI agents could pry loose the sleepy deposits US banks depend on

Your checking account probably pays you close to nothing. For decades, banks have counted on you not caring enough to move it.

Torsten Slok, Chief Economist at Apollo Global Management, thinks that arrangement may be living on borrowed time. His concern is agentic AI: software that could do the boring work of hunting down better rates on your behalf, and eventually move the money for you.

The warning, and the agent that sharpened it

Slok raised the alarm on September 27–28, 2026. His argument was that AI tools could automate and speed up the drift of customer deposits out of traditional low-yield accounts and into higher-paying fintech products.

On September 8, 2026, Meta launched Muse, an AI agent that links to over 12,000 financial institutions through Plaid, the data network that connects apps to bank accounts. Muse can read a user’s financial data. It does not yet move money between accounts.

The rate gap gives that friend plenty of material. Banks pay an average of 0.1% on checking accounts and around 0.4% on savings. Fintech platforms, by comparison, are offering between 3.3% and 5%.

Why sleepy money is worth so much

Banks run on a simple spread. They pay depositors a small rate, lend that money out at a higher one, and keep the difference as net interest margin.

Harvard Business School estimates that approximately 58% of a typical bank’s deposit franchise value comes from these so-called “sleepy deposits.” Those are balances that sit still because their owners never get around to shopping for a better deal.

Reuters Breakingviews ran the numbers on what waking those depositors up might cost. If banks were forced to lift rates on $3.8 trillion in customer savings to 4%, the industry could face $79 billion in additional annual interest expenses. Breakingviews noted that a bill of that size could potentially wipe out net income for numerous banks.

Investors appear to have noticed. Shares of major lenders, including JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, fell more than 3% in late September as worries about AI-driven deposit flight spread.

Not a bank run, but not nothing

An overnight stampede of deposits remains a low-probability scenario. Regulatory and technical barriers still sit between an AI agent spotting a better rate and a user’s paycheck actually moving. Muse, for one, cannot initiate transfers today.

The more likely outcome may be that banks raise rates to keep depositors from leaving. That keeps the money in place, but it also erodes the margin that made the money valuable in the first place.

What this means for banks, fintechs and savers

For fintechs offering 3.3% to 5%, if agents start routing cash toward the best available yield, the platforms already offering those yields stand to be the destination.

Plaid also sits in an interesting spot. Its network is the bridge that lets an agent like Muse see across more than 12,000 institutions.

The single most important signal to watch is functional, not financial. Muse and similar tools currently observe. If they gain the ability to execute transfers, the theoretical risk Slok described becomes an operational one.