My personal AI agent posted my bank details on company Slack. It's made me rethink how I use it.

Shane Mac ran into an unexpected problem with his personal AI agents.

Shane Mac Shane Mac, the cofounder and CEO of XMTP Labs, started playing around with personal AI agents in December.

But he was in for a rude shock when one of his agents posted his bank audit in a company Slack channel.

He said it reminded him how powerful agents are, and how the right permissions and controls are crucial.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Shane Mac, the 40-year-old CEO of software company XMTP Labs.

It has been edited for length and clarity.

This era of personal AI agents really began in the last year, around December for me.

I think the OpenClaw moment was when it became clear that a new era was coming.

I experimented with OpenClaw when it came out, as well as Hermes and all the different harnesses.

On a personal level, I've been using them for things I don't really want to do.

That could be following up with the DMV, reaching out to get quotes for local services for the house, booking golf sessions, that sort of stuff.

That's how I created my personal CFO agent.

I set up a 'CFO' agent using Grok Bot I set up CFO using Grok Bot around the end of August.

At the end of every month, I wanted to answer questions like: What are the balances? What are the expenses this month? What are the recurring expenses? Is there anything that looks fraudulent or suspicious? Is there anything you would recommend to save costs? I told the agent, "If you were going to be my personal financial advisor, what would you say to me every month?" For its permissions, I gave it read-only access to my personal checking and savings accounts.