Goldman Sachs is diving deeper into artificial intelligence and what it means for the company’s future.
In a 2025 letter to shareholders released Friday, Goldman’s management doubled down on its priorities related to its recent revamp of its “One Goldman Sachs” initiative to streamline the bank’s services and increase revenue.
The company described One GS as a “new operating model powered by AI.” He highlighted six areas as “ripe for transformation”: customer onboarding and KYC, vendor management, regulatory reporting, lending, enterprise risk management, and sales enablement.
“This doesn’t just mean refreshing the platform,” the bank said. “That means looking from front to back at how you organize your workforce, make decisions and think about productivity, efficiency and resilience.”
Goldman said it will rely heavily on talent to realize its AI ambitions, and suggested the battle to attract top performers continues across Wall Street.
“Competition for qualified employees is often intense within the financial services industry and with companies outside the financial services industry, including those in the technology industry,” the company said. The company added that it is “experiencing increased competition in recruiting and retaining employees” related to its technology initiatives and new lines of business.
This pressure is particularly acute in the new hubs that are central to Goldman’s operating model. The bank said 45% of its employees are currently based in strategic locations such as Warsaw, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Salt Lake City. In these markets, Goldman often competes with firms that have a deeper local presence.
At the same time, the company continues to receive significant interest from candidates. According to Goldman, more than 1 million people with experience applied for jobs in 2025, an increase of 33% from the previous year.
biggest risk
In addition to shedding light on its future AI bets, Goldman also outlined the biggest risks involved in using the technology that it believes shareholders should know about.
“The legal and regulatory environment surrounding AI is uncertain and rapidly evolving,” the company said, warning that AI models could produce erroneous outputs.
The company warned that generative AI models are prone to mistakes and, in a worst-case scenario, could “leak personal, confidential, or proprietary information that reflects biases in the data” based on their training. The company also noted that it uses “AI models developed by third parties,” and is therefore “reliant” on how the provider builds the models, the company said. In addition, bad actors could use AI’s capabilities to “perform fraud, misappropriate funds, or facilitate cyber-attacks,” the report said.
Still, CEO David Solomon struck a bullish tone in his letter about the prospects for AI. “We believe this technology will change the way we live and work,” he wrote, adding that “we also have serious questions” about its incredible speed of adoption.
“With any new technology, there will be winners and losers,” the CEO added. “There will likely be a period of readjustment, but over the long term I believe many institutions will see net benefits from AI as investment in AI continues to increase.”
AI is a central focus for Solomon. The bank partnered with developers such as Cognition Labs to develop its own product and deployed the GS AI chatbot to more than 47,000 employees.
Speaking at a conference in Europe last year, he said he hoped Goldman could invest beyond its roughly $6 billion technology budget, but noted at the time that investment levels were somewhat constrained by the need to deliver shareholder returns.