Recruiters Tap Big Banks for AI Expertise

In the search for new AI talent, employment recruiters are reportedly targeting big banks.

The last year has seen banks such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America lose dozens of artificial intelligence (AI) experts to rivals like Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (Nov. 28), citing data from the consultancy Evident.

According to the report, Goldman — which recruited 46 new workers but lost 106 — and Bank of America — which recruited 124 and lost 179 — saw the largest level of departures. Other banks have enjoyed a net gain in their AI staff. Wells Fargo, for example, lost 121 AI workers to its rivals, but hired away 251.

“It’s not just about hiring people, but nurturing and retaining them,” Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Evident’s chief executive officer, told Bloomberg. “They have a lot of other places to go.”

The report noted that although the departures make up just a fraction of the thousands of AI experts working from banks, the data offers some insight into how competitive the market for AI talent has become.

Bloomberg cited a separate report from recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles showing that the median compensation for employees in these roles was $901,000 in the U.S. and $676,000 for AI workers in Europe.

The news follows reports from last week that a number of tech giants were trying to hire away AI employees from OpenAI amid that company’s leadership shakeup.

Microsoft, Salesforce, NVIDIA and Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) were all among the companies making offers, with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott and Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff both pledging on social media to match the compensation of any OpenAI employees seeking new opportunities.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS on Tuesday examined how the combination of AI and accounts receivable (AR) processes can mean the difference between success and failure for companies.

“Manual processing of AR tasks continues to create payment bottlenecks, with 40% of finance professionals pointing to manual processes as the biggest challenge inhibiting collection,” PYMNTS wrote. “By automating tasks in the order-to-cash process, AI can increase their speed and efficiency, taking the first step in helping organizations achieve a healthy bottom line.”

In addition, companies can increase an AR team’s productivity by letting AI handle routine and labor-intensive tasks like data entry, compliance checks, invoice processing and collections, giving human workers space to work on higher-value endeavors.

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