Can You Turn It Off?

Reuters reported last week that America's top bank regulators have started asking banks whether they can control their AI agents, and whether they can turn them off. Stephen argues those questions are the best free AI audit any company will get this year, then runs through the other AI stories worth knowing from the week.

In this episode, Stephen Forte covers:

• What the regulators are asking. The Federal Reserve, the national bank regulator at the Treasury and the agency that insures bank deposits want to know what limits banks put on AI agents, how actions are approved, whether decisions can be audited and how the systems can be shut down. Europe's central bank set an end-of-October deadline, and the global Financial Stability Board published twelve sound practices that put the board at the center.
• Four questions for any company running agents. What is it allowed to do, who approves its actions, can you audit its decisions, and where is the off switch?
• The boardroom number. In an IBM survey, 80 percent of executives said an AI incident reached their board or senior leadership in the past year, but only 40 percent changed their governance.
• Lightning round: three model launches in three days. Google's Gemini 4 Argon, Grok Voice 3.0 and Meta's open-weight Muse Spark Open.
• Lightning round: the jobs question. KPMG's survey of 400 American chief executives: 53 percent plan cuts in some areas, while 89 percent expect headcount to grow.
• Lightning round: follow the money. AI took a record 82.7 percent of American venture deal value through September, per PitchBook, though its quarterly share is falling.
• Lightning round: Singapore assigns homework. Singapore's tech regulator launched a starter kit for testing AI agents.

Sources:

• Reuters via Finance & Commerce, 13 October 2026: https://finance-commerce.com/2026/10/bank-regulators-ai-risk-oversight-banks/
• Financial Stability Board, 15 October 2026: https://www.fsb.org/2026/10/fsb-finalises-sound-practices-for-the-responsible-adoption-of-artificial-intelligence-ai/
• IBM, 14 October 2026: https://newsroom.ibm.com/2026-10-14-ibm-study-eight-in-ten-emea-enterprises-escalate-ai-incidents-to-board-or-c-suite-as-ai-agents-test-governance
• Google, Gemini 4 Argon: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/introducing-gemini-4-argon/
• SiliconANGLE, Grok Voice 3.0: https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/14/grok-voice-3-0-from-spacexsi-outscores-openai-and-google-on-speech-to-speech-index/
• Meta, Muse Spark Open: https://research.meta.ai/blog/muse-spark-open
• KPMG 2026 CEO Outlook: https://kpmg.com/us/en/media/news/kpmg-us-ceo-outlook-2026.html
• Fortune, 15 October 2026: https://fortune.com/2026/10/15/kpmg-ceo-survey-cyber-risk-talent-hiring-reorganization/
• PitchBook and NVCA Venture Monitor, Q3 2026: https://nvca.org/pitchbook-nvca-venture-monitor/
• The Straits Times, 14 October 2026: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-launches-new-tool-kit-to-help-firms-test-ai-agents-for-safety-and-reliability

The AI Brief from the YPO Technology Network is a daily executive briefing on the AI developments that matter to business leaders. Hosted by Stephen Forte.