The thesis: an 'agentic' financial system
Don Tapscott, executive chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute, predicted that artificial intelligence agents will increasingly manage wealth, execute transactions and make financial decisions on people's behalf, reshaping the global financial system. He said this while speaking at the World Digital Assets Forum 2026, organized in Seoul by The Korea Herald and Herald Business, according to the Korean news outlet.
In his address, titled The Transformation of Assets in the New Technological Order, Tapscott argued that the convergence of AI and blockchain will change the way assets are administered and traded, reducing dependence on traditional financial intermediaries. His formula is an economy and financial system dominated by autonomous agents.
Rules and accountability before autonomy
Tapscott described blockchain as an internet of value, capable of transferring assets directly and securely instead of passing through multiple intermediaries, with potential savings in transaction costs and times. He identified personal AI agents as the main driver of change, predicting that they could become financial advisers, doctors and lawyers and make increasingly complex decisions for individuals.
The strongest prediction concerns computing capacity: according to Tapscott, such agents could reach an intelligence quotient of 1,000 within a decade. His vision is also set out in the book he wrote with Joseph F. Bradley, You to the Power of Two: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI, devoted to how personal AI counterparts can expand human capabilities.
Safeguards and Infrastructure for Korea
Trust in agents, however, is not automatic. Tapscott warned that allowing autonomous systems to move money requires stronger protections: verifiable digital identities, identifiable human owners, revocable transaction powers and customer due diligence requirements. He added the need for regulatory oversight, transparency and recourse mechanisms for consumers when an autonomous transaction causes harm. An agent, he summed up, cannot act arbitrarily if it does not answer to human beings.
On the industrial front, Tapscott urged South Korea to develop its own AI infrastructure instead of depending entirely on systems controlled by a few large US technology groups. By leveraging its industrial strengths, the country could build an economic model combining AI, blockchain, robotics and quantum technologies. The timing, investments and regulatory instruments of such a path remain to be verified: the available material does not specify them.
