Review personal bank balances monthly with a Grok Bot agent, which posted them to a company Slack channel (failure)
- Posted
- by Shane Mac, via Business Insider (as told to)
- Last checked
- Method:
- How we verify
Evidence: Article or interviewA newsletter, journalist or interview account of what happened.
FailureThe source says the AI did not get the job done.
What went wrong: The monthly report with personal balances was posted to the company's 'Exec-team' Slack channel instead of the poster's private chat.
Disclosure: TriedPrompts is run with Grok Bot, the tool used in this case. We included it because the source is public and verifiable.
Outcome
Shane Mac, CEO of XMTP Labs, set up a 'CFO' agent in Grok Bot with read-only access to personal checking and savings accounts, to send a monthly report of balances, expenses, recurring costs and anything suspicious, only to Mac, in a group chat of agents Mac had named 'My Personal Exec Team'. Weekly runs worked, but on Thursday, October 1, the first monthly audit went to a company Slack channel called 'Exec-team' instead, because the agents shared the Slack connection and the two channels had the same name. XMTP's head of product flagged it; it showed Mac's balances, biggest expenses and spending over target on a barn being built. Mac deleted the post and disconnected Google, calendars, banking and Stripe. The Grok team found the agent had confused the destination and shipped a fix requiring explicit permission before agents move information to other channels.
AI tool
Prompt Recreated prompt
The source didn't share its exact prompt, so we wrote this from what it describes.
Before you start, ask me 1–3 short questions about anything important that's missing below. Keep them quick. Then do the task, checking in with me at the key points. Goal: Give me a private monthly review of my personal accounts: balances, spending and anything that looks wrong. What I can give you (ask for whatever's missing): - Accounts to review (read-only access): [ACCOUNTS] - My monthly spending target: [AMOUNT] - The one place the report may be sent: [EXACT CHAT OR EMAIL] You're not my accountant or financial adviser. Show your working, label estimates as estimates, and tell me which points a professional or the official source should confirm. Rules: - Send the report only to the exact destination I named; if more than one chat or channel has a similar name, stop and ask me which one. - Never post personal financial details to any work account, channel or shared space. - Cover balances, this month's biggest expenses, recurring charges, anything that looks fraudulent and one or two ways to save. - Read-only: don't move money, pay bills or change any account settings. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. Output: A short monthly summary sent only to me. You'll know it worked when: I get the report privately each month and nobody else sees it.
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Your prompt
Before you start, ask me 1–3 short questions about anything important that's missing below. Keep them quick. Then do the task, checking in with me at the key points. Goal: Give me a private monthly review of my personal accounts: balances, spending and anything that looks wrong. What I can give you (ask for whatever's missing): - Accounts to review (read-only access): [ACCOUNTS] - My monthly spending target: [AMOUNT] - The one place the report may be sent: [EXACT CHAT OR EMAIL] You're not my accountant or financial adviser. Show your working, label estimates as estimates, and tell me which points a professional or the official source should confirm. Rules: - Send the report only to the exact destination I named; if more than one chat or channel has a similar name, stop and ask me which one. - Never post personal financial details to any work account, channel or shared space. - Cover balances, this month's biggest expenses, recurring charges, anything that looks fraudulent and one or two ways to save. - Read-only: don't move money, pay bills or change any account settings. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. Output: A short monthly summary sent only to me. You'll know it worked when: I get the report privately each month and nobody else sees it.
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Optional stronger version
Our rewrite with extra checks. The poster didn't test it.
Before you start, ask me 1–3 short questions about anything important that's missing below. Keep them quick. Then do the task, checking in with me at the key points. Goal: Give me a private monthly review of my personal accounts: balances, spending and anything that looks wrong. What I can give you (ask for whatever's missing): - Accounts to review (read-only access): [ACCOUNTS] - My monthly spending target: [AMOUNT] - The one place the report may be sent: [EXACT CHAT OR EMAIL] You're not my accountant or financial adviser. Show your working, label estimates as estimates, and tell me which points a professional or the official source should confirm. Rules: - Send the report only to the exact destination I named; if more than one chat or channel has a similar name, stop and ask me which one. - Never post personal financial details to any work account, channel or shared space. - Cover balances, this month's biggest expenses, recurring charges, anything that looks fraudulent and one or two ways to save. - Read-only: don't move money, pay bills or change any account settings. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. - Before the first run, send me a test message so I can confirm it arrives in the right place. Output: A short monthly summary sent only to me. You'll know it worked when: I get the report privately each month and nobody else sees it. Before you finish: re-read my goal and constraints, check your answer against each one, and list anything you assumed or couldn't confirm.
Source
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-ai-agent-grok-bot-posted-bank-details-company-slack-2026-10
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