Industry-first study from Evident shows leading European banks double down on AI hiring opportunities, but UK banks struggle to compete with US rivals
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is looking forward. It is set to assert its AI dominance in the global banking industry, according to a new study on AI talent and hiring trends from an AI and intelligence benchmarking platform. Clear.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has hired Twice as many AI-related jobs as any of its competitors between February and April 2023, when it announced 3,651 jobs, compared to 1,754 jobs advertised by Citigroup, 1,374 by Barclays and 1,268 by Deutsche Bank.
According to Evident’s AI Talent Report for Banks, the banking talent market for AI grew by 4% between October 2022 to April 2023, a period when many banks laid off workers in other departments.
The 60 largest banks in North America and Europe now employ around 46,000 people in AI development, data engineering, governance and ethics roles, with up to 100,000 global banking roles involved in bringing AI to market. Interestingly, 40% of the AI employees within these banks have started their current roles since January 2022.
Evident’s research shows that a number of European banks, including ING Groep, Barclays and NatWest Group, are ramping up their AI recruitment. In each case, AI-related employees account for more than 30% of open job descriptions, demonstrating the strategic importance of AI to each bank at a time when European banks face a growing AI gap with their North American competitors – as reported in the opening Clear AI indicator Again in January 2023.
Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Co-Founder and CEO of Evident, said: “JPMorgan Chase is making huge investments in AI, but it’s not the only big bank ramping up recruitment efforts. There has been an outburst of hiring activity across the industry. AI is one area of banking. People are being brought in in increasing numbers, and our data shows that banks compete fiercely to secure the best talent.”
Poaching is rampant among the largest banks in the world
According to Evident, banks are recruiting from a variety of sources to build their AI talent pipelines, with competitor banks providing more than 22,000 of all employees hired in AI-related roles, followed by IT consulting/tech companies (18,000) and universities (8,500). ) ).
Wells Fargo is the most active player when it comes to stealing AI talent, securing 5% of AI employees from Bank of America alone. US banks have marginal net inflows of AI talent, partly at the expense of UK banks. However, most poaching takes place within rather than between markets. Wells Fargo, RBC, BNP Paribas and HSBC lead net inflows in their respective markets.
Does artificial intelligence enhance current banking power dynamics?
The Evident report identifies New York as the global hub for AI talent, according to overall employee numbers, followed by London, Toronto, Bengaluru and Paris. India has three cities in the top 10, as does the US, with India reflecting the historic offshoring decisions that are now leading banks to double their staff and recruit heavily into their current locations.
However, different models for deploying AI talent are emerging, with notable contrast between US banks, which are hiring globally in all of their major locations, and markets such as Canada, France and the Netherlands, where AI talent is mostly recruited locally.
Europe’s AI talent pool remains particularly fragmented, with Germany struggling to develop domestic AI hubs. Neither Frankfurt nor Berlin is in the top 30 cities for AI talent, while Deutsche Bank, one of the leading AI recruiters, employs the majority of its AI staff outside Germany, and is focusing its AI recruitment efforts in other markets, particularly India.
According to Evident, these hiring trends indicate that AI is replicating traditional banking authority structures. For example, the strong presence of American, European and Asian banks in London made it difficult for British banks to compete for talent. While Barclays is currently hiring AI talent in similar numbers to its US counterparts, graduates of top UK universities are more likely to end up working in AI-related fields at JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America or Citigroup than any of the local banks. .
Mousavizadeh added: “The UK’s strength as a global financial services powerhouse remains its weakness when it comes to supporting the AI recruitment efforts of local banks. History repeats itself, with AI reinforcing the global power dynamics we have seen in banking over the past few decades.”
Generative AI is not mentioned in banks’ recruitment efforts… nor is responsible AI… yet
Evident’s research shows that despite the increased interest in generative AI caused by the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, less than 2% of recent AI development job descriptions announced by the world’s largest banks explicitly mentioned generative AI, large language paradigms ( LLMs) or ChatGPT.
“It’s encouraging to see banks treading lightly on generative AI rather than getting sucked into ChatGPT hype,” said co-founder and COO of Evident Annabel Ayles. “While identifying and testing different use cases across their departments, banks need people who really understand the technology behind the intelligence models.” It may take months or even years before these tools are put into production, so we don’t expect to see significant hiring for related jobs, but we do expect eventually an increase in jobs such as spot engineers, ML engineers, and product developers.” .
Evident also found little evidence that banks are increasing investment in responsible AI talent in light of the increased scrutiny being conducted on the risks of deploying robust AI systems. Between February 2022 and April 2023, Bankan appointed only explicitly to responsible AI roles.
“Less encouraging is the apparent lack of focus on hiring dedicated talent to ensure the safe and responsible use of these powerful new technologies. With all industries likely to face increased external scrutiny from policymakers and regulators about AI adoption, banks may be missing out on an opportunity to get ahead of the curve.”