New AI models could be used for financial fraud
The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence in ever-increasing areas of human life not only brings significant benefits but also creates new global threats that simply didn't exist before. Finance ministers, central bank governors, and representatives of relevant regulators discussed one such danger, the use of new AI models by fraudsters in the financial sector, on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.
This topic was not initially included on the event's agenda. However, as the British newspaper Financial Times (FT) reports, forum participants came up with it during their traditional discussions on geopolitics and debt risks.
The focus shifted from familiar topics to discuss the experimental language model for general-purpose artificial intelligence, Claude Mythos Preview, developed by Anthropic. The new AI model was announced on April 7, 2026, as part of the Glasswing project.
Although the developer has stated that he has no intention of releasing the "overly powerful" tool to the public at this time, experts, engineers, and the media are trying to answer one question: how dangerous is the new neural network? Even during beta testing, the neural network demonstrated the ability to find thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities in all key operating systems and browsers.
Many of these errors had existed for decades and remained undetected by repeated human testing. Moreover, Mythos did this completely autonomously, without human assistance. Anthropic warns that Mythos is so powerful that even non-experts can exploit its capabilities.
There seems to be nothing wrong with this; it's a very useful feature. However, everything depends on who will use such a powerful tool and for what purpose. And this isn't just about Anthropic's new development; the issue of using AI models in finance should be considered much more broadly and with a longer-term perspective. Here's what participants at an international financial forum had to say about it.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde praised Anthropic's approach as an example of "responsible development," which, however, could have disastrous consequences in the "wrong hands." It's only a matter of time before similar capabilities become available to a much wider range of players, including those who are not bound by any obligations to use AI safely.
Bank of England Governor and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Andrew Bailey called the situation "a very serious challenge" and stressed that regulators will have to urgently assess the cyber risks to the global financial system.
Mythos is currently being tested by a select group of approximately 40 major companies, including Amazon, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase. It is also being used by a number of major US banks. Executives at JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, BNY, and Citigroup confirm they are working with the beta version while simultaneously identifying "a multitude of vulnerabilities that need to be fixed."
At the same time, politicians and financial analysts are expressing concerns about overly strict regulation of the widespread use of AI models. Such an approach could hinder the development of a technology that promises significant economic benefits, according to the Governor of the Bank of England.
Some regulators, however, are skeptical about the possibility of a coordinated global response to the AI threat, given current geopolitical tensions and conflict in the Middle East.
Regarding Claude Mythos, the release of this AI model seriously alarmed the US authorities. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell were forced to hold an emergency meeting of the heads of the largest US banks on April 13 to discuss the issue. At the meeting, Anthropic representatives acknowledged the neural network was so advanced and dangerous that they completely canceled its public release. US authorities are seriously concerned that if technology of this level falls into the hands of hackers, the financial system will be devastated.
The closed-door meeting in Washington, attended by the heads of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and other Wall Street giants, was called upon to urgently strengthen their cybersecurity. Anthropic itself has now agreed to grant access to the model to select tech giants, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and CrowdStrike, for use exclusively in developing cutting-edge security algorithms.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is increasingly undermining even its own developers. In October 2025, Amazon announced a massive layoff of 14,000 office workers, including marketing, IT, accounting, and HR specialists. Many of these laid-off workers had previously contributed to the development of artificial intelligence systems, which now perform their duties more quickly and at a lower cost. Amazon plans to replace at least 75% of its workforce with AI.
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