Goldman Sachs Shocks Wall Street: First AI Software Engineer Goes Live in Historic Tech Pivot

Wall Street's sleeping giant just woke up—with machine learning coursing through its veins. Goldman Sachs has deployed its first AI software engineer, marking the most aggressive tech shift in the bank's 156-year history.

No more baby steps: The move bypasses human hiring freezes and cuts development cycles in half—while conveniently dodging those pesky bonus negotiations. Because nothing says 'cost efficiency' like algorithms that don't demand corner offices.

The real question? Whether this 'historic pivot' is about innovation... or just another spreadsheet trick to please shareholders. Either way, the trading floors will never be the same.

What to Know:

• Goldman plans to deploy hundreds of AI coders initially, potentially scaling to thousands depending on use cases
• The AI system can boost worker productivity by three to four times compared to previous AI tools
• Banks worldwide may cut 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years due to AI implementation

Wall Street's Latest AI Breakthrough

Devin gained recognition in technology circles last year when Cognition claimed it had created the world's first AI software engineer. Demo videos showed the program operating as a full-stack engineer, completing multi-step assignments that traditionally required human developers. "We're going to start augmenting our workforce with Devin, which is going to be like our new employee who's going to start doing stuff on the behalf of our developers," Argenti said in an interview this week.

The deployment marks a dramatic acceleration from just last year, when Wall Street firms including JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were rolling out basic cognitive assistants based on OpenAI models.

Those earlier systems helped employees with simple tasks like summarizing documents or writing emails. Now, agentic AI programs like Devin can build entire applications and execute complex programming jobs.

Argenti indicated that Goldman initially plans to deploy hundreds of Devin units. "That might go into the thousands, depending on the use cases," he said. The AI will be supervised by human employees and will handle routine tasks that engineers often consider drudgery, such as updating internal code to newer programming languages.

Corporate AI Adoption Accelerates

The speed of AI adoption across corporate America has reached what Argenti describes as "dizzying." Tech giants including Microsoft and Alphabet report that AI already produces about 30% of the code on some projects. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said last month that AI handles as much as 50% of the work at his company.

At Goldman Sachs, this more powerful FORM of AI has the potential to boost worker productivity by up to three or four times the rate of previous AI tools.

The investment bank represents the first major financial institution to use Devin, according to Cognition. The startup was founded in late 2023 by three engineers whose staff reportedly includes champion coders.

Cognition doubled its valuation to nearly $4 billion in March, just one year after Devin's release. The company counts Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, prominent venture capitalists and Palantir co-founders, among its investors. Goldman doesn't own a stake in Cognition, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be identified discussing the bank's investments.

Workforce Transformation and Job Concerns

The bank's move could spark fresh anxiety on Wall Street about job cuts resulting from AI implementation. Executives at companies from Amazon to Ford have grown more candid about AI's impact on hiring plans. Bloomberg's research arm predicted in January that banks worldwide will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as they implement AI technology.

Argenti, who joined Goldman from Amazon in 2019, envisions a "hybrid workforce" where humans and AI coexist. "It's really about people and AIs working side by side," he said. Engineers will be expected to describe problems coherently and convert them into prompts, then supervise the work of AI agents.

While software development lends itself naturally to reinforcement learning used to train AI systems, other banking roles aren't far from automation. "Those models are basically just as good as any developer, it's really cool," Argenti said. He believes this will serve as a proof point to expand AI implementation to other areas within the bank.

Closing Thoughts

Goldman Sachs' deployment of Devin represents a pivotal moment in Wall Street's AI transformation, moving beyond simple assistants to autonomous systems capable of complex programming tasks. The initiative signals broader changes coming to the financial industry as AI technology advances rapidly.