Jamie Dimon has maintained his trademark candor when talking about AI and his work.
“Jobs are going to disappear,” Dimon said at the Fortune conference in December. “People need to stop sticking their heads in the sand.”
Dimon said in an interview with CNN that JPMorgan’s headcount could remain flat for the time being, or even increase as the bank continues to implement AI, if the bank does a “good job.”
An even bigger promise is efficiency. “It’s going to impact every job,” Dimon said at the 2024 AllianceBernstein Conference, describing a future where AI handles tasks like note-taking and summarization at the push of a button.
This efficiency could mean more jobs in areas such as cybersecurity, and Dimon said banks need AI to combat increasingly sophisticated fraud.
Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Burnham said on Tuesday’s fourth-quarter earnings call that the bank was allowing additional “last-minute” technology hires.
But generally speaking, Burnham said on the same call, “When someone needs something done, whether it’s in technology or any other field, we want to make sure that the first reaction isn’t ‘Hire more people.'”
He previously said JPMorgan is asking people to “resist headcount growth as much as possible” and focus instead on efficiency.
Marian Lake, head of JPMorgan’s consumer business, said operational staff productivity could increase by 40% to 50% over the next five years. This shift will lead to a slowdown in net headcount growth, she said, as each employee can handle far more work through automation, digital assistants and self-service tools.
