JPMorgan blocks AI agents from shopping with Chase cards

JPMorgan Chase is blocking artificial intelligence agents from shopping with its customers' Chase credit cards, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday (November 13) — even when customers hand the agent their card number. It is the first big-bank roadblock for AI agent shopping, just as the technology starts to take off.

Virtual cards classed as commercial, costing more

The problem lies in how agents pay. Rather than using a customer's real card number, agents typically generate a one-time virtual card for the transaction. JPMorgan treats those virtual cards as commercial cards, triggering automatic declines, and merchants have complained to Visa and Mastercard that agent transactions cost more to accept. Stripe's Link wallet routes around the block: it gives the agent a single-use virtual card instead of the customer's own card. Link has more than 300 million users and is accepted at more than one million businesses — but merchants say those cards are also classed as commercial, cost more, and make returns harder.

Dimon warned early: "You don't want rogue agents"

JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon set out the bank's position on the October 13 third-quarter earnings call: "You don't want rogue agents." The bank will not let outside agents inside customer accounts because the risk is too great, he said. External agents already cannot log in to Chase accounts with a customer's credentials, send money or pay bills; the card restriction extends the same perimeter to shopping. JPMorgan's debit and credit card sales volume reached $539.5 billion in the third quarter, up 10% from a year earlier. The bank still allows controlled, read-only access through approved third-party providers such as Plaid.

JPMorgan is not acting alone

JPMorgan is not alone. Between October 13 and 20, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab also restricted third-party AI services from logging in on behalf of customers. United Airlines said on November 12 that it would block unauthorised AI agents from booking tickets, and Amazon does not allow agents to buy on its platform. On the other side, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Wallet on November 13, letting its "dots" agents check out on a user's behalf, with each purchase approved by face or fingerprint. The door to agent shopping has just opened — and the banks' and merchants' defences are arriving with it. Sources: The Wall Street Journal via PYMNTS; TechCrunch; Crypto Briefing; The Motley Fool.