Bank of America’s Moynihan says AI’s economic benefit is ‘kicking in more’

“The AI investment’s been building during the year and is probably a bigger contributor next year and the years beyond,” Moynihan said Monday in a Bloomberg Television interview. “AI is kicking in more and more, and so it’s not all attributable to AI, but that’s having a marginal impact that’s pretty strong.”

Moynihan, who has led the bank for nearly 15 years, said the firm is predicting a strong economy for the US next year, with expected growth of 2.4%, up from about 2% in 2025. While the labor market has started to get softer, it appears that it’s more of a normalization for jobs, Moynihan said.

AI companies including OpenAI have been pulling in billions of dollars of funds in recent months as investors are eager to bet on the industry. But executives such as Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos have warned that AI spending is an “industrial bubble” that could lead to lost investment, but will ultimately help society.

Moynihan said his bank sees relatively limited risk to the economy — including the impact on consumers and job losses — if the AI industry became too overheated and had to pull back, given that the sector is composed 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 duration of the contract by the person who’s going to commit to use the data center,” Moynihan said.

The bank itself is also using artificial intelligence, he said in the interview. The company launched Erica, its agent bot, in 2018. Now, Erica can answer 700 questions, up from 200, Moynihan said.

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“We’ll be applying more and more of automated intelligence — or augmented intelligence, as we call it, with a person using AI, using that to be more effective — and that’ll affect all the businesses,” Moynihan said.