The Financial Stability Board spent four months deciding that AI agents are not employees. Its June consultation on responsible AI adoption had leaned on the familiar machinery of people management: three lines of defense, role definitions, agent certification with a permitted scope on file. The final report, published October 15, keeps that machinery but drops the premise. Financial institutions are now told to recognize that AI agents do not reason like humans and may interpret pre-defined goals in unexpected ways. The phrase "synthetic employee" is gone.

That is the quiet change. The loud one is where the FSB puts the boundary of technical control. For the first time, an international standard setter has named the control plane, defined it, and then stated that it does not settle the question that matters most to a board.