Goldman Sachs now using Anthropic to create AI agents that can do accounting, other tasks
Goldman Sachs is working with Anthropic, a maker of cloud AI, to develop AI agents that can handle accounting and other specific roles. Both organizations have been collaborating on this project for the last six months.
Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest investment banks, is working with Anthropic to build AI agents, AI employees who can independently handle a lot of work within the company. Both organizations aim to develop AI agents that can help Goldman Sachs automate multiple roles. It’s worth noting that Anthropic is the same company behind Cloud AI, a tool that was recently cited as the trigger behind the selloff in SaaS stocks a few days ago.
A CNBC report citing Marco Argenti, Goldman’s chief information officer, said the bank has been working with Anthropic engineers for the past six months to co-develop autonomous AI agents, specifically tackling two specific areas: accounting for trades and transactions, as well as customer screening and onboarding.
Argenti reportedly said the company was “in the early stages” of developing agents based on Anthropic’s cloud model, with the hope that AI would reduce the time it takes for these essential tasks.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon previously said his bank is launching a multi-year effort to reorganize its operations around generative AI, a technology that has drawn widespread attention since the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022.
Even as investment banks like Goldman saw rising revenues from trading and advisory businesses, Solomon said the company planned to “pause growth in total headcount” as part of its overhaul.
The partnership between Goldman and Anthropic is yielding early results, with Argento saying the company was “surprised” by how effective the cloud proved to be beyond coding, particularly in areas like accounting and compliance, where it could process large amounts of data and documents while enforcing rules and decisions.
He said Goldman last year began testing an autonomous AI coding tool called “Devin,” which was now widely available to its engineers. However, the bank soon realized that Anthropic’s AI model could be deployed in other parts of the organization as well.
The bank expects to primarily use AI to make work faster and more efficient. Cutting jobs, because AI is not in the plan, not yet.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has repeatedly raised serious concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on white-collar roles, including jobs in the accounting profession.
On the issue of automation, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna recently warned about the potential risk to accounting-related jobs in an interview with Bloomberg. He said, “If I look at the jobs that are matching documents to make sure they’re the same, like what happens in accounts payable and accounts receivable, I can see half of them going.”
