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Goldman Sachs is experimenting with generative AI tools internally to help developers automatically generate and test code, the company’s chief information officer told CNBC.
Marco Argenti, who joined Goldman as a partner from Amazon in 2019, said on Tuesday that the company’s software engineers have used the technology to generate lines of code automatically.
It is currently in the “proof of concept” stage and not yet ready for production, he added.
“Developers have been using a number of assisted coding technologies,” Argenti told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at the Goldman Sachs technology symposium on Tuesday.
Generative AI refers to a group of products that produce human-like text or images in response to written directions from users.
Among the most popular examples is ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Other competing products include Google’s Bard and Stable Diffusion, an AI-based image generator created by Startup Stability AI.
Goldmans interest in generative AI products comes despite pushback from some banking giants over their internal use of ChatGPT. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America have all reportedly restricted staff from using the software.
Argenti declined to identify the generative AI products the company uses. He also did not specify which bank divisions are using the technology.
ChatGPT and products like it could shake up the world of financial services. AI can take the wheel to make investment decisions, for example, or automate many customer service functions.
“It’s still very early days,” Argenti said, though he compared the development of generative AI to “the dawn of the internet.”
“You’re not going to immediately put all the most important workloads there, but the important thing is to try to understand the potential,” he said.
Goldman has invested heavily in turning the bank into a technology-driven company in recent years. The company launched Marcus, a consumer-focused independent digital bank, in 2016 and rolled out to the UK in 2018.
“I’ve been in technology for probably almost forty years or more, and this is one of the biggest distractions I’ve ever seen,” said Argenti. “It’s probably comparable to the internet, apps, cloud – that’s an order of magnitude.”
Goldman’s head of innovation emphasized that AI should not be considered a replacement for software developers, but rather a companion to help them be more productive.
In some cases, developers have been able to write up to 40% of their code automatically using generative AI, he said. They use the software to test code and generate new ones, Argenti added.
“When you have a technology like GPT that tests the code, or you generate tests for GPT code, you create this dualism where you test the machine and you get the machine to test your work,” he said.
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