Bank of America’s Moynihan Says AI’s Economic Benefit Is ‘Kicking In More’
(Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said artificial intelligence is starting to make a bigger impact on the US economy.
“AI investment has been increasing throughout the year and will likely make a larger contribution next year and beyond,” Moynihan said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Monday. “AI is increasingly coming into play, and so not all of this can be attributed to AI, but it does have a pretty strong marginal impact.”
Moynihan, who has been managing the bank for about 15 years, said that the firm predicts a strong economy for the United States next year, and that growth will increase from about 2% in 2025 to 2.4%. Moynihan said things are starting to normalize more as the labor market begins to soften.
AI companies, including OpenAI, have been attracting billions of dollars in funding in recent months as investors are eager to invest in the sector. But executives such as Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos have warned that AI spending is an “industrial bubble” that could lead to investment losses but ultimately help society.
Moynihan said his bank sees a relatively limited risk to the economy, including the impact on consumers and job losses, if the AI industry gets overheated and is forced to pull back because the sector consists of a narrow group of companies.
“As a lender, we look at the leverage on these projects and make sure we’re comfortable with that and the length of the contract for whoever is going to commit to using the data center,” Moynihan said.
In the interview, he said that the bank itself also uses artificial intelligence. The company launched its agent bot Erica in 2018. Erica can now answer 700 questions, up from 200, Moynihan said.
“We’re going to be increasingly applying automated intelligence — or augmented intelligence as we call it — to a person using AI and using it to be more effective, and that’s going to impact all businesses,” Moynihan said.
–With help from David Westin.
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