Who will win the Wall Street AI banking competition? JPMorgan Chase has taken the lead

According to the latest Evident AI Index released on Thursday, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.US) has the most AI talent, with a 16% growth in the past 12 months, surpassing the total number of AI researchers of its seven major competitors.

Annabel Ayles, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Evident, said, "Undoubtedly, in terms of AI maturity, JPMorgan Chase remains the most formidable bank to beat. The speed at which such a large organization adopts AI is remarkable."

Prior to the ChatGPT AI chat frenzy sparked by OpenAI in 2022, JPMorgan Chase has been investing in artificial intelligence for years. The financial institution hired AI research head Manuela Veloso in 2018, and since then its use cases have grown to over 400.

JPMorgan Chase is already seeing the dollar value of its commitment. The bank's CEO, Daniel Pinto, stated last month that the bank expects to reap nearly $2 billion in returns from its investments in the technology this year, especially in fraud prevention.

"As we look ahead, we believe that AI and large language models will have a significant impact on improving our existing operational service processes and efficiency, and we are doing a lot of work on this in the medium to long term," Pinto said.

Since Evident began ranking in early 2023, the top four banks have not only maintained their positions but have also continued to move forward.

Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Evident, said, "Leaders are leading and playing a greater leadership role."

Evident evaluates 50 major banks in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region based on talent, innovation, transparency, and leadership using publicly available data related to AI adoption.

While all 50 banks in the index have increased their adoption measures since last year, data shows that the adoption speed of the top 10 banks is twice that of other banks in the field.

Mousavizadeh stated that banks dedicated to AI are going all out: recruiting, poaching talent, designing internal systems, conducting tests, and collaborating with major players like NVIDIA and Microsoft.

"We can see that these dynamics are creating divergence in the banking system," Mousavizadeh said. "If you stand still for a moment, when will you almost certainly fall behind? I would say, we need another 18 months." Many banks are not standing still.

This year, Morgan Stanley saw the largest increase in the index, jumping 7 spots to enter the top 10. The investment bank first partnered with OpenAI in March 2023, becoming the only wealth management partner of this artificial intelligence startup at that time.

In September 2023, the company launched the AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant, a generative AI chatbot that helps financial advisors access a wealth of technical knowledge from the bank. In June of this year, the bank introduced Debrief, a generative AI assistant built on OpenAI's GPT-4, to support its financial advisors.

"The performance of HSBC and Morgan Stanley shows that banks that have been slow to start in the field of artificial intelligence still have the potential to catch up and even surpass in this field," Ayles said. "The competition in AI applications is far from over, but the gap between leaders and other banks is widening. Lower-ranked institutions will need to accelerate their pace if they want to go further."