JPMorgan Chase’s message to its global group of software developers is clear. If we don’t embrace AI, we risk falling behind.
An internal document seen by Business Insider and posted on JPMorgan’s employee intranet reveals a new set of expectations for the bank’s software engineering workforce, which makes up the bulk of the bank’s 65,000-person global technology division. The newly listed goals, published on the intranet earlier this month, state that all software and security engineers are expected to “drive excellence” by deploying AI and “contribute to efforts to improve productivity, speed, scalability, and impact.”
A document written by a bank’s human resources leader outlines two core goals for software engineers. One is to step up your coding game, and the other is to start leveraging AI to save time and accomplish more. An image of the document on the intranet shows new language about targets “will be added automatically and will be visible by the end of March,” referring to upcoming changes to employee targets that are scheduled to come into effect at the end of this month. The company also instructed employees to work with their supervisors to develop clear goals that are in line with the bank’s new goals.
One of the goals, written by HR, reads, “Demonstrate measurable improvements in code quality, speed, and productivity through regular use of approved AI coding assistance tools, contributing to overall team efficiency goals.” “We work to identify, implement, and optimize AI-driven automation opportunities within our Technology Lifecycle Management (TLM) processes to drive efficiency and support capacity unlock initiatives. We ensure that all enhancements leverage current technology assets before considering new solutions.”
A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment.
JPMorgan is one of Wall Street’s biggest investors in technology and artificial intelligence, with its technology investments expected to reach about $20 billion in 2026, far outpacing peers such as Goldman Sachs. Across the United States, companies including Meta and Google are beginning to encourage their employees to adopt AI tools and, in some cases, evaluate their use.
Business Insider spoke to five engineers across the bank who said the push to adopt AI is being felt more broadly, including in executive conversations, intranet posts, and dashboards that show who’s using specific AI tools and who’s not. They added that discussions about productivity and AI adoption have become more frequent in recent weeks. A longtime IT developer at Global Technology Group said developers are preparing a pilot version of Anthropic’s Claude Code to be rolled out as early as April. Claude Code will be available alongside four other large language models that programmers already use: two from OpenAI’s ChatGPT and two from Anthropic’s Claude.
“Anxiety” among developers
Developers Business Insider spoke to said they are being encouraged to use AI tools for a wide range of tasks, from writing code to preparing presentations. One dashboard tracking a bank’s GitHub Copilot adoption and usage appeared to show details about which employees had installed GitHub Copilot and identified individuals as “light”, “heavy”, or “non” users.
For some, the message adds pressure within companies that have attracted increased scrutiny in recent years for their use of internal monitoring tools and performance tracking. Business Insider published a series of reports on the company’s Workforce Activity Data Utility in 2022. The program collected data points about how employees spent their days, from the length of video calls to how long they spent drafting emails to where they sat in the office.
“There’s a lot of anxiety in the current environment,” said the longtime IT developer. Those who don’t use AI risk being seen as underperforming, the developer said. Another developer said managers said in a recent meeting that the availability of new AI tools comes with “expectations” that speed and output should show “significant increases” quarter-on-quarter.
Three out of five developers Business Insider spoke to said that despite their discomfort with tracking, they found the tools helpful.
A new dimension of performance
The latest guidance on the use of AI comes as the bank makes other adjustments to how it ranks employees’ success at work. The bank said on its intranet portal that it will now streamline some of the key “factors” it uses to evaluate employees, with a focus on using two categories: “what we achieved” (business results) and “how we achieved it”, which includes compliance with the company’s principles of conduct.
JPMorgan plans to categorize its employees into three buckets, according to a screenshot of the bank’s intranet. Employees who exceed job standards are “high-profile,” the majority of employees are “achieving,” and those who need “additional support” and struggle to perform consistently are “needs improvement.”
Another page reviewed by Business Insider lists the skills that non-managers working in software engineering are expected to demonstrate across “all aspects of performance.” One is “data fluency,” which it notes is applied by those who develop and drive “the adoption of new tools and methodologies to leverage data in business flows.” “Recruitment rate” is one measure of the impact on employees’ ability to actually demonstrate their skills.
Documents from JPMorgan’s intranet reflect the company’s longstanding culture of internal oversight and data collection, making it clear that continuous performance tracking is essential to keep employees on track throughout the year.
“You and your managers use Goals to track year-to-year progress, recognize impact, and streamline annual reviews,” the company writes on an internal page associated with Goals.
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