Dimon: We’re investing in AI and technology “regardless of the environment”

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he will continue investing in “branches, technology, AI… regardless of the environment” on an earnings call.

The comments came as the bank’s quarterly expenses hit $23.6 billion – a 4% rise in part due to “growth in front office and technology employees.”

JPMorgan reports that it spends approximately $17 billion annually on technology and has over 50,000 staff working in its technology function.

It is also a significant open source user, for example as the first major US bank to implement the FINOS Foundation’s Common Domain Model (CDM) as a primary regulatory reporting mechanism for derivatives. 

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Dimon was speaking on a Q1 2025 earnings call on April 11, during which the bank reported net quarterly income of $14.6 billion, up 9%.

Dimon shrugged off market turbulence over Trump’s tariffs, saying “the result [of such turbulence] in a bank is almost always the same, which is volatile markets, credit losses go up, people get more conservative, investments go down. It looks like a recession. Is it mild or hard? 

“I don't know. But… I've been quite cautious and you can see it in our capital, liquidity, our position, our balance sheet, and so we're prepared.”

"One trillion bits of data every day"

Dimon also used the call to air some thinly veiled fury at the growing thicket of regulations that JPMorgan and its peers have to deal with.

“We report 1 trillion – I think it's 1 trillion bits of data every day or something like that to all the various regulators,” he said in a Q&A.

“Resolution recovery, which is a complete waste of time, is 80,000 pages long, okay? It will never happen that way,” Dimon said – referring to the “living will” large banks need to submit to regulators every 24 months. 

“CCAR, which is virtually a waste of time, is 20,000 pages long… There is this excessive cost built up that hopefully we can get rid of,” he added.

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Referring back to the volatility caused by an unpredictable geopolitical environment and the outcome of Trumps’ tariffs, Dimon added that “we have, depending what happens to Basel III and CCAR and G-SIFI and all that, $30 billion to $60 billion of excess capital. And in the Chairman's letter, I wrote about what we think of that, but based upon the environment, the turbulence issues, I like having excess capital. 

“We are prepared for any environment and that's so we can serve clients. That's not for any other reason. So – but we have plenty of capital and plenty of liquidity to get through whatever the stormy seas are.”