You let an AI manage your assets and repay loans automatically. It is convenient. But have you ever wondered: if the AI borrows money on its own and cannot repay it—who does the lender chase? The AI? It has no property to seize. You? It is not you.
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This 'responsibility vacuum' is becoming a real problem in the AI economy. By 2026, some people had started trying to fill it, but they are doing so in different ways.
Three main liability models today point to three different 'debtors'
Model 1: The AI's 'principal' covers the debt—whoever authorizes is responsible
The UK Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) made this clear in its 2026 report: an AI is neither a natural person nor a legal entity, so it cannot own assets or assume obligations. Legally, an AI is just a smarter tool. Anything you do through an AI is legally treated as something you did yourself. If the AI borrows money and fails to repay, that means you personally owe the debt and must repay it with your own assets.
The foundation of this logic is 'fiduciary duty'—if you use an AI to manage other people's assets (for example, you are an estate executor or trustee), you are still responsible for the interests of the principal. You cannot say 'the AI decided it, so it was not me.'
Under this model, repayment responsibility falls entirely on the deployer (you). Most compliance-oriented frameworks currently lean toward this approach.
Model 2: The AI gets an independent credit identity—it borrows and bears the debt itself
This model is more radical. In April 2026, Bank of Bots (BOB) issued 'the world's first loan autonomously managed by an AI'—the AI signed the loan agreement with its own Ed25519 identity key, USDC went directly into an AI self-custodied Gnosis Safe wallet, and the AI then arranged repayment itself.
BOB gives each AI an encrypted identity passport and a 'BOB score' that evaluates credit based on on-chain transaction volume, counterparty diversity, account age, and repayment history. The core logic is: the AI is treated as an independent economic participant with its own credit identity, and the loan is approved based on the AI's own economic activity data. This is similar to giving an AI a 'digital ID' so it can borrow in its own name.
But under this model, what happens if the AI cannot repay? BOB has not made that clear. There is no legal precedent for 'chasing debt from an AI'—you cannot sue an algorithm, and it is unclear how you would freeze its assets (if the assets are in its own wallet, who has the authority to dispose of them?). So this step is still mostly experimental.
Model 3: Delegated agency—the AI only gets an 'authorized credit limit'
This is the safest approach and currently the most technically mature. Aave's credit delegation model is a typical example: you deposit collateral in Aave, then authorize a specific AI address to borrow part of it. The borrowing limit comes from your collateral, and the AI is only responsible for initiating transactions. The actual debtor is still you.
The Agent Credit project has turned this into a standardized script: the agent only holds its own private key (used to sign borrowing/repayment transactions), and you, as the principal, call approveDelegation() in the Aave UI to approve the assets and amounts that can be borrowed. Before each borrowing, four safety checks run: single transaction limit, authorized amount, health factor, and gas balance. If any check fails, the transaction is stopped.
Under this model, the responsibility is very clear: the debt is yours, and the AI only operates within the limits you authorized. If the AI makes a mistake (for example, borrows something it should not), you have the right to revoke the authorization at any time, but any debt already created is still in your name.
From 'AI debt' to estate planning: what you leave your heirs may be hidden debt
If your AI keeps borrowing and repaying automatically after you are gone, by the time your heirs get the wallet, they may find that it already owes Aave a large amount of money. If the AI's 'automatic repayment' logic depends on your deposits, once the deposits run out the AI may still continue borrowing—this is closer to reality than you might think.
So if your estate plan involves AI agents, you need to make at least a few things clear:
Does the AI agent have borrowing authority? If yes, through which authorization path? (Aave delegation / independent credit / other)
Is there collateral behind these debts? Will heirs be passively dragged into debt because of the AI's operations?
If the AI's repayment logic stops after your death, have you set up a mechanism to 'auto-liquidate' or 'shut down AI authority'?
The reality is: the regulatory answers to these questions have not appeared yet. In July 2026, EPAA and HSBC set up an AI agent payments working group to solve the basic question of 'who is responsible when an AI goes beyond its defined scope,' with policy recommendations expected only in November 2027. So the current situation is: technology is running ahead of regulation, and responsibility falls on the deployer. While you are alive, you are responsible for watching every loan the AI makes. Once you are gone, there is no clear judicial precedent to follow.
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How to verify your setup
If you are already using an AI agent with borrowing authority, do a 'death scenario drill':
Disconnect your main wallet (or simulate a state where you cannot operate it), and see whether the AI agent can still automatically initiate borrowing transactions. If it can, that means it relies on the credit limit you pre-approved, not on your real-time signature—this debt may continue to grow after your death.
Check the AI's borrowing history: look at that address's borrowing and repayment records for the past three months on Etherscan or the Aave Dashboard. If you see 'borrow' transactions, confirm where the repayment comes from (deducted from your deposits, or from the AI's own income).
Mark the AI agent's authority in your estate inventory: if there is an unrevoked
approveDelegationrecord, tell your heirs clearly: 'This AI address has borrowing authority and must be revoked immediately after my death.'
