The AI talent war on Wall Street is in full swing! Goldman Sachs emerges as the loser with the largest net talent outflow.
According to the data, in the past few months, Wall Street's major banks have been actively recruiting for their AI businesses, trying to attract talent in every possible way. Among these banks, Goldman Sachs has suffered the most in the talent war, with 106 employees being poached by competitors in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, the number of new hires has not been able to keep up, resulting in a net loss of 60 employees, the highest among all major banks. Bank of America ranks second in terms of net talent loss, with 179 departures from its AI department and 124 new hires in the past 12 months ending in September, resulting in a net decrease of 55 employees.
According to the data, Wall Street's major banks have been actively recruiting talent in the AI field in the past few months, trying to attract the best candidates. Among these banks, Goldman Sachs has suffered the most in the talent war, with 106 employees being poached by competitors in the past 12 months. The number of new hires is not enough to make up for the loss, resulting in a net loss of 60 employees, the highest among all major banks.
Bank of America ranks second in terms of net talent loss, with 179 employees leaving its AI department in the past 12 months, while only 124 new hires were made, resulting in a net decrease of 55 employees. In other major banks, Morgan Stanley's AI department saw a net decrease of 10 employees, and Citigroup saw a net decrease of 7 employees.
In contrast, Wells Fargo saw a net increase of 130 employees during the same period, the highest among all major banks. Although JPMorgan Chase lost 224 AI talents, it also hired 325 new employees, resulting in a net increase of 101 employees.
Alexandra Mousavizadeh, CEO of the consulting firm Evident, which compiled the data, said that attracting talent not only requires efforts in recruitment, but also in talent development and retention, as talents have more choices.
Although the major banks that have experienced talent loss still have thousands of AI professionals in their teams, the data on talent loss still reflects the fierce competition for AI talent.
In any company, positions related to data, analysis, and AI have the highest salaries. The data shows that the median annual income for these positions in the United States, including equity rewards, is $901,000, compared to $676,000 in Europe.
Although Goldman Sachs has lost 106 AI talents to competitors, it is still a drop in the bucket compared to its nearly 46,000 global employees. Moreover, Goldman Sachs has been investing heavily to attract AI talents. This year, Goldman Sachs hired Bing Xiang, a Chinese-American managing director from Amazon, to lead its AI research and development engineering.
In the past few months, major banks on Wall Street have been slowly experimenting with more AI technologies in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Citigroup plans to build a 40,000-strong army of programmers capable of testing various AI technologies by the first quarter of next year. In the past 12 months, Citigroup has hired 189 AI talents, but also lost 196 employees to competitors.
Analysts believe that if a large bank does not have its own AI strategy, it is equivalent to having no strategy at all. The era of artificial intelligence has arrived.
Wall Street News has mentioned that Wall Street is leading an AI revolution, with giants embracing AI technology. In March of this year, OpenAI announced six use cases when releasing GPT-4, including Morgan Stanley Wealth Management using GPT-4 to organize and mobilize its knowledge base for clients. Morgan Stanley claimed to be the "only wealth management strategic client that can use OpenAI's new products in advance." Its wealth management division will use GPT-4.
Goldman Sachs previously stated that its developers are internally testing generative AI tools to assist them in coding. He said that this is currently in the "concept verification" stage and is not yet ready for production.
Meanwhile, at JPMorgan Chase, the bank currently has thousands of AI job vacancies. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon previously stated that he believes AI technology can reduce employees' working hours to 3.5 days per week. The company has lost 224 AI talents in the past 12 months, but has hired 325 people, making it the largest recruiter among major banks. Lori Beer, JPMorgan Chase's global technology chief, previously stated that the bank has hired 1,500 data scientists and machine learning engineers and is testing "multiple use cases" of GPT technology.
Dimon introduced that JPMorgan Chase already has thousands of employees using AI and said that AI is "crucial to our company's future success." He previously stated that AI can be used to help JPMorgan Chase develop new products, drive customer engagement, improve productivity, and strengthen risk management.
However, Dimon also mentioned the risks associated with AI. He said that technology can indeed do incredible things for humans, but it also has negative impacts, just like the possibility of plane crashes or drug abuse. "In my opinion, the biggest negative impact of AI is when bad people use it for bad purposes." Dimon also mentioned that AI may lead to job losses, but this has always been a problem with new technologies.
According to reports, JPMorgan Chase is developing a software service similar to ChatGPT and has applied for a trademark registration for a product called "IndexGPT." It will use AI-supported cloud computing software to analyze and select securities that meet customer needs. JPMorgan Chase's Chief Data Analytics Officer, Teresa Heitsenrether, said, "We are very proud of our AI talent, insights, and solutions being recognized once again, and we will continue to invest in AI capabilities."