Meta’s Muse is blocked at Schwab. Its CEO asks who’s liable if an agent moves money. When an AI agent makes a mistake, causes financial harm, exposes private information or breaks the law, who's responsible? The answer isn't complicated. AI agents aren't legal persons. They're software created, configured, authorised and deployed by people and companies. US law has recognised autonomous software since 2000. The federal E-SIGN Act explicitly defines an "electronic agent" as software capable of acting without human approval at the time of each action. The law recognises transactions conducted through automated systems. If a company gives an AI agent access to confidential information, financial accounts or computer systems, that company remains responsible for the decisions it made about access, permissions, security controls and supervision. Whether it must compensate someone depends on the applicable law, contracts and circumstances. If an agent transfers money without authorisation, accesses confidential records or attacks another company's infrastructure, investigators should examine who configured it, what instructions it received, what permissions it had, who authorised those permissions and what its activity logs show. Schwab can't blame an agent for acting independently, any more than they can blame an Excel macro. The difference between an AI agent making a mistake and a company being legally liable for that mistake is important. But neither changes who's responsible for deploying the software.