JPMorgan Chase, America's largest bank, is urging managers to reduce employment as it shifts to utilising artificial intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency. Chief Finance Officer Jeremy Barnum told investors on Monday that the bank wants leaders to "resist headcount growth wherever possible and increase their focus on efficiency."
The decision follows a huge expansion in which the bank's personnel increased by more than 23 per cent in five years, reaching over 3,17,000 people by the end of 2024, The Times of India reports.
Marianne Lake, Chief Executive Officer of consumer and community banking, predicted a 10 per cent drop in headcount for operations teams that handle fraud, payment processing, and account services. She praised AI developments for enabling these cuts and suggested that the savings may be even greater.
"I would take the over on this projection and bet that we will deliver more," Lake told investors during the bank's annual presentation in New York City.
Despite the overall decline, Barnum assured investors that the bank will "continue to hire and invest in high-certainty areas where there is a link between adding employees and growth revenue," citing bankers, advisors, and branches as strategic growth areas.
The new attitude is consistent with CEO Jamie Dimon's remarks earlier this year at a town hall meeting, when he told staff that "attrition is your friend" and pushed them to embrace job-replacing AI technologies.
"We could be far more efficient, and we should always be thinking that way," Dimon said, adding that, "reducing bureaucracy literally will reduce cancer."
