JPMorgan Chase names new head of AI unit

JPMorgan Chase is beefing up its technology arm, including artificial intelligence-related efforts, which is an area CEO Jamie Dimon has discussed as being critical for the future of the bank.

In a message to employees obtained by FOX Business, Dimon and CFO Daniel Pinto revealed that longtime Head of Global Securities Services Teresa Heitsenrether’s new role would become chief data and analytics officer immediately Wednesday. A data and analytics organization that JPMorgan Chase has just created will fall under Heitsenrether’s purview.

Another memo announced that Tom Fitzgerald will immediately shift from global head of custody and fund services to assume the position Heitsenrether is leaving.

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The data and analytics organization that Heitsenrether will run is meant to “drive [the company’s] strategy and assist in the [firm-wide] adoption of AI,” Dimon and Pinto’s memo said. She will also keep her seat on the operating committee.

Dimon and Pinto characterized “using AI technologies effectively and responsibly to develop new products, drive customer engagement, improve productivity and enhance risk management” as a “top priority” in the memo about Heitsenrether’s new position.

A few months ago, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO had told shareholders in a letter that the “importance of implementing new technologies simply cannot be overstated,” adding that AI and the data it relies on “will be critical to our company’s future success.”

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The company already has “more than 300 AI use cases in production” for various purposes, and the technology has “already added significant value to” JPMorgan Chase, according to Dimon’s shareholder letter. He also referenced the numerous employees that the bank has working on AI-related efforts, including workers in data management, data science, machine learning engineering and AI research.

“We’re imagining new ways to augment and empower employees with AI through human-centered collaborative tools and workflow, leveraging tools like large language models, including ChatGPT,” he said at the time.

ChatGPT, the wildly popular chatbot created by OpenAI and backed by Microsoft, and the AI field as a whole have seen rapid growth in recent months, with many companies moving to capitalize and find applications for it. Some that have done so include Microsoft, Spotify, Amazon, Oracle, Alphabet, Snapchat and Salesforce.

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JPMorgan Chase filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last month that indicated it could potentially have plans for an AI feature for choosing securities and assets. The service trademark it applied for was “IndexGPT.”

The firm’s moves on Wednesday, earlier reported by Bloomberg and Reuters, also involved having Marc Badrichani and Troy Rohrbaugh lead a combined unit of markets, sales, research and securities services.