Jamie Dimon says AI may be as impactful on humanity as printing press, electricity and computers

Jamie Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, said he was convinced that artificial intelligence will have a profound impact on society.

In his annual letter to shareholders released Monday, Dimon chose AI as the first topic in his update of issues facing the biggest U.S. bank by assets — ahead of geopolitical risks, recent acquisitions and regulatory matters.

“While we do not know the full effect or the precise rate at which AI will change our business — or how it will affect society at large — we are completely convinced the consequences will be extraordinary,” Dimon said.

The impact will be “possibly as transformational as some of the major technological inventions of the past several hundred years: Think the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, computing and the Internet.”

Dimon’s letter, read widely in the business world because of his status as one of the most successful leaders in finance, hit a wide variety of topics. The CEO said that he had ongoing concerns about inflationary pressures and reiterated his warning that the world may be entering the riskiest era in geopolitics since World War II.

But his focus on AI, first mentioned in this format in a 2017 shareholder letter, stood out. The technology, which has gained in prominence since ChatGPT became a viral sensation in late 2022, can generate human-sounding responses to queries. Enthusiasm for AI has fueled the meteoric rise in chipmaker Nvidia and helped propel tech names to new heights.  

JPMorgan now has more than 2,000 AI and machine learning employees and data scientists, Dimon said. But the technology could ultimately touch all of the bank’s roughly 310,000 employees, assisting some workers while replacing others.

“Over time, we anticipate that our use of AI has the potential to augment virtually every job, as well as impact our workforce composition,” Dimon said. “It may reduce certain job categories or roles, but it may create others as well.”

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