Goldman Sachs AI Bet: Headcount Up as Productivity Soars

$GS CEO David Solomon dropped a nuanced take on AI and labor in a Bloomberg interview that deserves more attention than it's getting. Yes, the June 30 headcount snapshot looks flat. But once you account for the roughly 2,300 new hires that join every Q3, headcount is actually up year-over-year. The AI-is-replacing-everyone narrative? Not the story here.

Solomon's framing is more interesting than a simple hire-or-fire binary: workers who adopt AI tools don't just do the same job faster, they start thinking differently about their work. Goldman is betting that a more productive employee base expands the pie rather than shrinks the headcount. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo CFO Mike Santomassimo echoed similar optimism in his own earnings call, pointing to non-interest income of $10.3 billion, a four-year high, with wealth management revenues up 13-14% on record recruiting.

Big banks are printing money, adopting AI, and still hiring. The doom scroll can wait.