Goldman Sachs has introduced its latest team member, though this one isn’t a human. The investment bank is set to integrate an autonomous software engineer developed by the artificial intelligence firm Cognition, which will join the ranks of the company’s 12,000 human developers, as confirmed by Goldman’s technology chief Marco Argenti in an interview with Finance Newso.
This program, referred to as Devin, gained prominence last year in tech circles after Cognition asserted it had designed the first AI software engineer. Demonstration videos showcased Devin’s capability to function as a full-stack engineer, tackling complex, multi-step tasks with little to no human involvement.
Argenti elaborated, “We are going to start augmenting our workforce with Devin, who will act as a new employee, performing tasks on behalf of our developers.” He noted that the initial deployment could involve hundreds of Devins, potentially scaling into the thousands depending on various use cases.
This development illustrates the rapid pace at which AI technology is being integrated into the corporate landscape. In the previous year, several Wall Street institutions, including JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, initiated the rollout of cognitive assistants powered by OpenAI models to familiarize their employees with the new technology.
The introduction of agentic AI, such as Devin, marks a significant turning point on Wall Street, indicating a shift toward more advanced AI tools capable of executing intricate tasks, such as building complete applications, rather than simply assisting humans with basic tasks like drafting emails or summarizing documents.
Major tech firms like Microsoft and Alphabet have reported that AI contributes to around 30% of the code on certain projects, while Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revealed last month that AI could handle as much as 50% of the workload within his organization.
With the adoption of such advanced AI at Goldman Sachs, there exists the potential for worker productivity to increase by three or four times compared to previous AI tools, Argenti stated.
Devin will work under the supervision of human employees and will take on tasks that engineers often view as tedious, such as updating internal code to align with newer programming languages, according to Argenti.
Goldman Sachs is the first major financial institution to implement Devin, as per Cognition, which was established in late 2023 by a group of engineers noted for their coding expertise. The startup doubled its valuation to approximately $4 billion in March, just a year following the launch of Devin, and includes notable investors like Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, co-founders of Palantir.
According to informed sources, Goldman Sachs does not hold an equity stake in Cognition.
Hybrid workforce
This strategic move by Goldman may trigger renewed concerns across Wall Street regarding potential job reductions due to AI advancements. Executives from various major companies, including Amazon and Ford, have openly discussed the implications of AI for their staffing strategies. Research from Bloomberg’s intelligence division suggests that banks worldwide might slash as many as 200,000 jobs over the next three to five years as they embrace AI technologies.
Argenti, who transitioned to Goldman from Amazon in 2019, outlined a proactive vision for a “hybrid workforce,” where human employees and AI collaborate closely.
“We are talking about people and AIs working side by side,” Argenti explained. “Engineers will need to articulate issues clearly and translate them into effective prompts while also overseeing the output of these agents.”
Although the role of software developer suits the type of training associated with reinforcement learning utilized for enhancing AI capabilities, Argenti suggested that many other bank roles are not far from potential automation.
“These models are performing at levels comparable to human developers, which is impressive,” Argenti stated, signaling potential extensions of AI applications across different functions.
