‘I see people doing dumb things’: Jamie Dimon warns of crisis-style AI reckoning
The world’s most influential banker has drawn parallels to the time before the global financial crisis amid inflated asset prices and peers doing “dumb things”.
Jamie Dimon, the top boss of Wall Street behemoth JP Morgan, said: “Unfortunately we did see this in ‘05, ‘06, ‘07, almost the same thing.
“The rising tide lifts all boats, everyone was making a lot of money… my own view is people are getting a little comfortable that this is real.”
Dimon’s comments make reference to the 2008 global financial crisis, where banks fuelling a bubble in the housing market through the use of high-risk subprime mortgages.
The American banker, who took home a $43m pay packet last year, has been one of the biggest critics of an AI bubble, previously warning most people involved in the soaring prices of tech equities “won’t do well”.
During JP Morgan’s annual investor day on Monday, Dimon said: “There will be a cycle one day, I don’t know when [there] is going to be a cycle, I don’t know what events will cause that cycle.
“My anxiety is high over it.”
Fears around an AI bubble swelled back up earlier this year, following the drop of a new tool from tech giant Anthropic, which sent software stocks plummeting.
Billions were wiped off Wall Street markets earlier this year after a substack post outlining the bear case for AI spread across the internet.
The article envisioned a future in which software and tech disruption would hit ecommerce, payment processors and multiple other sectors leading to a major dent for the economy.
“In every way AI was exceeding expectations, and the market was AI,” the research said describing the scenario. “The only problem … the economy was not.”
But deals across the sector have continued to plough onwards with OpenAI signing a multi-billion dollar deal with chip giant AMD in October to build large scale data centres as the AI arms race powers on.
OpenAI alone is currently involved in $1tn worth of deals with the likes of Oracle, a $300bn fixture, and CoreWeave at $22bn.
Dimon: ‘We don’t run a company for good times’
In the last financial year, JP Morgan bulked up its financial cushion as Dimon reiterated warnings around market risk.
For the fourth quarter, loan loss provisions rose to $4.7bn, up from $2.6bn the year prior and $3.4bn in the third quarter.
The hefty increase took a chunk out of the firm’s bottom line, with profit falling to $13bn, a seven per cent drop compared to the prior-year quarter.
But Dimon was quick to soothe investors on Monday amid rising tensions, telling his audience: “We don’t run the company for good times”.
The Wall Street chief also took a jab at some of his peers warning he sees “a couple of people doing some dumb things”.
“They’re just doing some things to create net interest income or say they’re winning in the markets business.
“We’re not chasing anything – we will not do stuff the wrong way for the wrong reason.”
Despite concerns around asset prices, Dimon did remain bullish on leveraging tech in the banking sector stating it “changes everything” and the firm has to “compete at that level too”.
The bank chief said in Davos earlier this year JP Morgan would likely have fewer employees in five years time as the rollout of tech continues.
Last year, the Bank of England weighed in on the “stretched” valuations from the AI boom.
The central bank’s Financial Policy Committee has warned a crash in the roaring value of US tech giants could spark trouble overseas.
“A crystallisation of such global risks could have a material impact on the UK as an open economy and global financial centre,” the said in an update analysing the state of the financial ecosystem