Robinhood's disclosure for its new agent feature has a sentence worth reading twice. Loops, it says, "may place, modify, or cancel trades in your account automatically, without prompting you for approval on each transaction," and that includes the hours "while you're asleep." Robinhood announced Agents and Loops at HOOD Summit in Houston on September 29. Both are coming soon to eligible U.S. customers.
It was not alone. Four days earlier, Microsoft introduced Autopilot, an agent that "keeps working even when you're not." On the same day as Robinhood, OpenAI launched dots and Oracle launched Fusion Claw. That is four agent launches inside five days, and every one of them acts on your behalf instead of answering a question.
We built a film around one paper demo: a made-up agent, a made-up account, and a $500 order it wants to place at 3:07 a.m. You can watch it on this page. There is also a 51-second cut on YouTube Shorts. The film's argument is simple. Before any agent acts for you, check four switches, and check them tonight.
Switch one: money
What can it reach? Robinhood's answer is the right one: "Your agent can only access the funds in your dedicated agentic trading account." The agent gets a box, not your balance. In our demo the box holds a $1,000 cap and the main account is off limits.
Who you can actually use today
That one design choice puts a ceiling on your worst night. If something goes wrong at 3:07 a.m., the loss stops at whatever you put in the box. Tonight: give your agent its own account, with a limit you could lose and still sleep.
Switch two: approval
Does it ask before each action? Robinhood's per-trade approval is "a setting shown during setup and defaults to on." With it on, "your agent cannot place an order until you approve it." Turn it off, and "your agent can place orders without asking you to confirm each one."
This is the switch the demo turns into a picture. Approval off: the order fills at 3:07 and you are asleep. Rewind to the same order in the same minute with approval on, and the order is held until you wake up. Nothing else changed. Loops, when they arrive, are built for the first case: a standing instruction that runs "around the clock."
Tonight: leave approval on until you have read a week of what it would have done.
What the four switches change
A box, not your balance
Robinhood's agent can only reach a dedicated account. Your worst night stops at what you put in it.
Approval on is the default
Same order, same minute. With approval on it waits for you. With it off it fills while you sleep.
Off means stop
Turning Loops off does not reverse positions or orders already placed. Find the log before you need it.
Switch three: scope
Which apps can it touch, and who is it when it does? Microsoft says Autopilot "lives in your tenant with its own identity, memory, computer and workspace," with "permissions, audit and governance behind it." OpenAI's dots can connect to "over 4,000 apps," and Custom Rules "let you allow specific actions, require approval, or block them." The background work dots do on their own runs on tools that are "restricted to be read-only."
The identity question matters more than it sounds. An agent with its own identity can be given its own permissions. An agent acting as you gets all of yours. Anyone who has set up a new hire knows the difference: they get a role, not your login. Tonight: list every app the agent is connected to. Cut what it does not need, and make the rest read-only.
Switch four: the receipt, and the off switch
Can you see what it did? Oracle's Fusion Claw writes an Outcome Receipt, which Oracle describes as "an auditable record of exactly what happened, including the authority applied, evidence used, decisions made, actions and transactions executed, and the result." OpenAI lets you "follow progress, including background work, in Activity View."
Then read the last line of Robinhood's Loops disclosure: "You can pause or turn off Loops at any time in settings; positions or orders already placed will not be automatically reversed." Off means stop. It does not mean undo. If you work in finance this will feel familiar. Locking a ledger stops new postings. It does not reverse the ones already made. Tonight: find the activity log before you need it, and learn what off actually does.
The honest part
Most of this is not in your hands yet. Robinhood Agents and Loops are coming soon. Autopilot is expanding to private preview. Dots are rolling out to Pro and Business Premium plans in eligible markets. The exception is Oracle, whose 25 Claw-powered applications are available now to Fusion customers.
That is the argument for setting the switches now. Robinhood's own disclosure says "Robinhood does not control, supervise, monitor, recommend, or audit agents," and "You assume all risk for trades executed by AI agents." The defaults are yours to keep, and the night you need them is the wrong night to look for them.
What we left out
HOOD Summit also brought Agent Apps from 11 data companies, weekend trading for a selection of U.S. equities (pending regulatory review), and perpetual futures. Robinhood's earlier agentic trading, launched in May for people who bring their own agents, has passed 150,000 accounts, but that figure belongs to the earlier product, not the new Agents. Microsoft's launch also introduced Home and Code, and OpenAI previewed specialist dots with their own identity for access management. Every quote here comes from the Robinhood, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle launch pages, checked live on October 1. Nothing here is financial advice; the demo is fiction on paper.
The zoom out
Last week's agents answered. This week's act, and the companies shipping them have written down where the brakes are. Those four switches sit in settings screens most people click through during setup. Money, approval, scope, receipt and off: set all four before 3:07 a.m. sets them for you.
Set the four switches
- Money and approval. Give the agent its own account with a limit you could lose and still sleep, and leave approval on until you have read a week of what it would have done.
- Scope. List every connected app. Cut what it does not need and make the rest read-only.
- Receipt and off. Find the activity log before you need it, and learn what off actually does.
Off means stop. Set the switches before 3:07.
This week's agents act on your behalf, and their makers wrote down where the brakes are. Most are not in your hands yet, which is exactly when to decide how they will be set.