Schwab CEO says firm is blocking rogue AI agents from client accounts

Charles Schwab is blocking AI agents that try to log in to client accounts on clients’ behalf, president and CEO Rick Wurster told advisors at Schwab IMPACT 2026 in Boston today. The move puts Schwab alongside JPMorgan Chase and other banks in shutting out third-party agents.

“The first thing we are doing is we are keeping rogue agents from being able to log in on the client’s behalf, we block that activity using technology,” Wurster said in his keynote. "When you look on a weekly basis, it's 30, 40, 50 times that we might be seeing a particular AI agent come to our sites and try to log in, and we are blocking it."

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said on the bank’s Oct. 13 earnings call that it won’t let outside agents operate inside customer accounts, CNBC reported, citing Meta’s Muse and Instinct as examples. A JPMorgan spokeswoman told CNBC the bank currently blocks external AI agents from acting on behalf of retail customers. Citigroup and Bank of America have imposed similar limits, the Financial Times reported. 

“The good news that we’ve found actually is it doesn’t seem that a lot of clients have a lot of interest in giving up their credentials and their financial experience to these agents,” Wurster said at IMPACT. 

Muse sparked Schwab selloff

Fear of Muse, unveiled by Meta in September, sent shares of Schwab and LPL Financial down more than 6% in a single session. Famed financial advisor Josh Brown, CEO of New York-based RIA Ritholtz Wealth Management, wrote on LinkedIn last month that Instinct's AI agent automatically booked an Uber for his upcoming flight, fitting into his timing and vehicle preferences. 

“This is the first time my jaw has ever truly been on the floor from an AI tool,” Brown wrote.

Wurster previously disclosed in an Oct. 15 earnings call that Schwab was blocking outside AI agents trying to access client accounts.

“We are blocking unauthorized agents who try to log in on behalf of clients. It is not a safe way for our clients to access Schwab, and we are blocking it to protect clients and our firm,” he said on the call. "I get a report every day tracking how many times we’ve had to block one of the different agents, and it’s not many because I think people aren’t using it in that way in their financial life.” 

Schwab's approach differs from Robinhood, which announced in May that investors could start connecting third-party AI agents to their accounts to execute equity trades and make credit card purchases without requiring the customer to approve each individual transaction.

"We are allowing LLMs to connect, but we are controlling the experience," Wurster said on Schwab's earnings call. "We control the authentication experience. We control when they do and they can come in. We do not allow them to move money because we think there is too much risk there to the client and to the firm. We do have clients that are trading through LLMs and APIs, as I described earlier. That is growing."

How Schwab plans to let AI in

Schwab is instead building two approved AI pathways. Retail investors are being provided access to Charley, the generative AI assistant Schwab introducedin late September. Wurster said Charley will eventually extend to the firm’s advisor services business.

Schwab was the first RIA custodian included in Anthropic’s Claude for Financial Advisors, which Schwab has limited to read-only access. The firm is now offering RIAs a $4,800 credit toward Claude enterprise seats, in a move geared towards getting smaller RIAs to sign up for the 20-seat minimum enterprise plans that are regarded for having better security controls than other plans from Anthropic.

“By coming in through an MCP [Model Context Protocol] server, we have control over that entire experience, allowing us to deliver an LLM in your pocket in a safe and secure way, making your life easier and hopefully your clients’ lives better,” Wurster said at IMPACT.