Over the past six months, the banking industry has significantly increased its recruitment of artificial intelligence (AI) professionals. According to a recent report by Evident Insights, large financial firms have reported substantial efficiency gains from their investments in AI technology. The research firm, which tracks 50 of the largest banks across North America, Europe, and Asia, has noted that this surge in AI hiring represents the largest six-month increase in two years.
Leading the charge in this AI recruitment boom are JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. These industry giants have expanded their pool of AI model development, platform engineering, and project management technicians by nearly 13%. Evident Insights co-founder and co-CEO, Alexandra Mousavizadeh, noted that amidst market volatility, leading banks are quietly yet persistently advancing their AI transformation. She emphasized that AI roles might be the only secure jobs in the banking sector at present.
The banking sector’s increasing investment in specialized AI talent is yielding tangible business value. While the total headcount among the banks analyzed by Evident has declined by 3% over the past two years, AI hiring has steadily gained momentum. From just over 60,000 roles in September 2023, the number of AI positions has grown to nearly 80,000 by March.
Evident categorizes specialized AI skills into three primary areas: developers who create algorithms and train models, engineers who build data pipelines and platforms, and product managers tasked with deploying AI capabilities. All three categories have experienced a significant increase in headcount, with product manager positions growing by 42%.
Banks are adopting a highly targeted approach to talent acquisition, focusing on roles that scale AI use cases to deliver measurable value. Generative AI-powered client-facing interfaces, such as Capital One’s Chat Concierge and JPMorgan Chase’s Quest IndexGPT investment tool, are examples of scalable applications creating added value.
Capital One, which ranked second for AI maturity in September, has built its generative AI development on a decade-long cloud modernization journey. The company is set to expand its consumer financial services portfolio through a $35-billion merger with Discover, recently approved by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
JPMorgan Chase, ranked first for AI maturity, has deployed its LLM Suite internally, projecting $2 billion in efficiency gains from AI adoption. Goldman Sachs, another significant player, is nearing a 1:2 ratio between AI software implementation technicians and data engineers, reflecting a focused effort to deploy AI technology company-wide.
Goldman Sachs has equipped its 12,000 developers with the GitHub Copilot coding assistant, resulting in efficiency gains of approximately 20%. CIO Marco Argenti emphasized that the initiative is not only about efficiency but also about rethinking operational processes. Additionally, the bank has provided 10,000 employees with GS AI, a ChatGPT-like tool designed to assist bankers, traders, and asset managers in their daily tasks.
As AI adoption spreads across various functions, banks are also investing in training programs to upskill their existing workforce. Evident’s survey found that nearly three-quarters of the firms provided AI-specific training. These efforts are often aligned with the rollout of new generative AI productivity tools, which require phased trials in controlled environments to allow experimentation without risk.
Note: This article is inspired by content from https://www.hrdive.com/news/banks-ramp-up-ai-hiring-roi-efficiency-gains-evident-insights/746724/. It has been rephrased for originality. Images are credited to the original source.