JPMorgan CEO: AI may create things ‘we’re going to lose at’

Dive Brief:

As JPMorgan Chase contends with “an extraordinary amount of competition,” CEO Jamie Dimon said artificial intelligence brings competitive risks alongside opportunities for the largest U.S. lender.
“It'll create things we are better at and we can win at. It will also probably create things that we're going to lose at, because competitors will find ways to bite off something,” Dimon said Wednesday, without elaborating. “So we just have to be really, really good at it.”
The CEO, speaking at a Bernstein investor conference, also indicated the New York-based bank is “on the lookout” for acquisitions. “I do think there might be, in the next couple years, a chance to put $10 [billion] or $20 billion to work buying something,” he said.

Dive Insight:

Of about 1,000 AI uses at JPMorgan today, “there are 50 or 60 which I would put in the ‘significant’ category,” Dimon said. “We're saving real money, and we see real changes taking place.”

While AI won’t change the core elements of banking – “you have to move money, raise money, send money, manage money, raise capital for people,” Dimon said – “everything else can change: how that gets done, how the blockchain gets used, and all these other things.”

JPMorgan faces no shortage of bank, nonbank and fintech competitors in different business segments, and there’s more money and capability in the market today, Dimon said.

Competitors are “very smart, and they're coming,” Dimon said. “Some have been quite successful, and have taken pieces of our business that we coulda, woulda, shoulda.”

“One of the biggest moats is having a bank that is hungry and not complacent and not arrogant and constantly investing in its future, like technology,” Dimon said.

In payments, for example, the bank operates globally and at scale, “but if we don't build a new set of things, even for stablecoins or JPMorgan deposit coin, that could be challenged, too,” he said. “We are hyper-focused on all these forms of competition and constantly investing to compete in that world.”

The bank is beta-testing its Smart Cash product, an AI-powered tool designed to automatically move a customer’s money between their checking account and higher-earning brokerage products to maximize yield and manage cash flow.

Dimon also noted AI has only increased cyber risk for the banking system and Anthropic’s AI model Mythos “just amplifies it, dramatically,” he said.

In April, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned big-bank CEOs of cyber risk related to Mythos.

Anthropic did the right thing by informing the government, Dimon said, and then launching the Project Glasswing effort, meant to address what’s needed to safeguard the new model. JPMorgan is part of that initiative.

Other banks should have access to Mythos, although the rollout needs to be done carefully, Dimon said. “It is dangerous,” he said. “It’s a nuclear weapon in the hands of someone.”

“All the big banks are working together now,” he said. “We're trying to inform other banks where we are. The government's going to have to decide with Anthropic how and when it's given to other people, but we're doing it for the system.”

On the prospect of an acquisition, Dimon expects opportunities for JPMorgan, “but it's got to make sense.”

That means ensuring there’s a cultural fit, the acquired company can be integrated and enhance the bank’s business, and it's not “some separate, standalone thing that I have to pray we don't screw up,” Dimon said.

However, with elevated asset prices, “I'm not that fond of buying stock at these prices, or companies, and we're quite patient with capital. It's not burning a hole in our pocket at all. If it sits there for a while, no problem,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate Wednesday on the type of acquisition the bank might consider, and emphasized M&A is a separate conversation for bank management from organic growth.

“Organic growth is hard, so if you sit around a lot of management meetings, the first thing they do when they're not doing well in organic growth is they start to bull**** about M&A,” Dimon said.