Half of the 46,000 employees at Goldman Sachs now have access to artificial intelligence. By the end of this year, chief information officer Marco Argenti expects even more will be able to tap into AI in hopes of boosting their productivity—yet still not everyone at the firm.

“We have the entire organization that needs to somehow re-tune and re-tool itself for AI,” says Argenti. “But, I think we’ve been very, very, very intentional with regards to driving people change management.”

The measured approach at Goldman Sachs, ranked #35 on the Fortune 500, reflects Argenti’s view that AI technology is rapidly evolving and still comes with a lot of uncertainty. Goldman’s AI steering group and risk and control teams work to determine which of the dozens of AI proposals should be tackled and how that can be done responsibly.

One example is the experimentation Goldman is doing with agentic AI, which still isn’t fully deployed. AI agents are meant to work autonomously or with little human oversight, performing multi-step reasoning or task completion. These agents could, theoretically, perform compliance checks or help process customer transactions. But the AI agents also need specific training and can hallucinate, resulting in errors in the results they produce. Goldman says it is still assessing what additional controls it needs to effectively and safely use agentic AI.

Because Goldman operates in a highly regulated sector, the industry historically prefers to build technology in-house, giving these institutions more control to protect sensitive customer financial data. That’s changed with the rise of cloud, and more recently generative AI, and a vast majority of financial institutions have deployed at least one generative AI product, frequently partnering with external vendors.

Roughly one out of every four Goldman Sachs employees is an engineer, and this group was the first Argenti targeted when deploying generative AI tools. Argenti gave those workers access to AI coding assistant tools, including GitHub Copilot and Gemini Code Assist. Goldman has conducted competitions inspired by reality TV entrepreneurial competition show Shark Tank so that developers could share their most creative uses of AI.

Argenti measures the return on investment from these copilot tools in a few ways, including frequency of use and the acceptance rate of code generated by GitHub and similar tools. 

Broader use of generative AI within the company came with the launch of GS AI Assistant, which rolled out last year and has expanded to 10,000 employees including bankers, traders, and asset managers. This tool, which Goldman anticipates will be available to nearly all employees by the end of 2025, can summarize documents, draft emails, analyze data, and create personalized content. 

GS AI Assistant was built to be multi-modal, utilizing large language models from Gemini, OpenAI and Llama, with Argenti exploring adding LLMs from other AI hyperscalers. Argenti says he doesn’t want to rely on just one vendor and is giving the firm the flexibility to use a model that may be better for coding, while a rival offering is stronger at reasoning. Goldman also factors in how easy the LLMs are to modify and how expensive they are to run.

“All of those considerations got us to the point where we want to continue to plug-and-play with those models,” says Argenti.

For workers not in engineering, Goldman is tracking usage rates and sends out surveys to get feedback to make continued improvements to GS AI Assistant. The company has sought to promote champions from asset and wealth management, private banking, and trading—not the technologists—to get buy-in. “People might be afraid or skeptical when you drive technology first,” says Argenti.

Argenti joined the firm as a partner and co-CIO in 2019 and fully took on the role in 2022 after his co-CIO, George Lee, became co-head of the geopolitical and technology insights arm Goldman Sachs Global Institute. Prior to joining Goldman, Argenti was vice president of technology at Amazon Web Services for six years and also held leadership roles at telecommunications company Nokia.

A lot of his earlier work at Goldman focused on enabling the firm’s employees to work from home as a result of the global pandemic. But he also wanted to shift the culture of engineering to be less like how a bank thinks about technology, which tended to favor creating bespoke solutions for each separate division, and more like a tech giant that creates one tool to be shared across the firm. 

This newer way of thinking is reflected in the open-source data management and governance platform Legend, which publicly launched in 2020. Goldman built Legend internally over 10 years prior to the public launch, giving both technologists and non-technical users the ability to develop data-centered applications and derive insights from that data.

Data is a key component of Argenti’s AI strategy, which he calls a three-leg stool that should also represent the AI technology itself and the people who use it. Good quality data is needed for the right output from LLMs, but changing people’s behavior is equally important. 

“It’s about amplifying capabilities and in the hands of the best people, I think you’re going to get the best results,” says Argenti.

John Kell

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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In a move that risks enraging the Trump administration, the European Commission has announced major antitrust enforcement decisions against Google and Apple.

The EU’s executive body on Wednesday said Google parent Alphabet had almost certainly broken the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, a year-old competition rulebook for Big Tech, in multiple ways. If it finalizes these preliminary findings, Google could be in line for fines that theoretically run as high as 10% of global annual revenues.

The Commission also ordered Apple to comply with the DMA by making the iPhone more easily and effectively interoperable with third-party devices such as smartwatches, headphones, and TV sets. This is the first time the Commission has given a company specific measures that it must take to comply with this law.

President Donald Trump last month threatened to lob tariffs at anyone who dares to fine or enforce tech rules against U.S. companies in ways that his administration thinks are discriminatory. (He has already triggered a tariff war with Europe and the rest of the world regarding steel and aluminum imports, and has threatened further tariffs on European alcohol.)

Vice President JD Vance has also hit out at European tech regulation, and Meta and Apple—both of which face separate EU antitrust decisions as soon as this month—have complained to Trump about being picked on in Europe.

The Commission’s preliminary findings about Alphabet’s DMA non-compliance are about two long-running issues.

The first relates to Google search results promoting other Google services, like shopping, hotel booking, and financial results, to the detriment of third-party competitors—either by putting the Google services at the top of the results, or by displaying them in eye-catching dedicated spaces. The EU already fined Google $2.7 billion for similar self-preferencing eight years ago, but now it has a new law to wield.

The second finding is about Google not allowing developers who distribute their Android apps through Google Play to tell customers about cheaper deals that they can get off Google’s platform, and to freely steer them there. The Commission also said Google is charging developers too much for onboarding new customers. Again, Google already received a $5 billion EU antitrust fine for Android abuses back in 2018, but that was about preinstalled services on Android phones; the newer case is specific to the rules in the DMA.

“The two preliminary findings we adopt today aim to ensure that Alphabet abides by EU rules when it comes to two services widely used by businesses and consumers across the EU, Google Search and Android phones,” said Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera.

As for Apple, the company will now have to heavily change its ways to comply with the DMA.

For example, Apple has long made life difficult for rival smartwatch makers by ensuring that users of their products can’t reply to notifications coming in from their iPhones. (Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, who has just revived his discontinued smartwatch under the Core brand, wrote a blog post about his Apple frustrations just this week.)

Apple will now have to fix that, and it will also have to allow for easier pairing and better data connections with third-party headphones and virtual-reality headsets. Developers will also get new opportunities to integrate file-sharing and streaming capabilities in their iPhone apps. And Apple will have to give developers more transparent and timely information when they want to make their products and services interoperable with the iPhone and iPad.

“Today’s decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple’s ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don’t have to play by the same rules,” Apple said in an emailed statement. “It’s bad for our products and for our European users. We will continue to work with the European Commission to help them understand our concerns on behalf of our users.”

Google, meanwhile, complained that the Commission’s findings would “make it harder for people to find what they are looking for and reduce traffic to European businesses.”

The Commission officials who announced Wednesday’s decisions took great care to imply that nobody was being treated unfairly on the basis of their American-ness.

Although Apple complained that it was being singled out by the Commission’s latest move, Ribera stressed that the Commission was “simply implementing the law” with its Apple decisions. Similarly, tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen emphasized that Alphabet’s alleged misdeeds “negatively impact many European and non-European businesses.”

That is unlikely to placate the U.S. leadership, whose response is now keenly awaited.

After all, Apple also claimed that the new interoperability requirements force it to give away its intellectual property to competitors. And Trump’s memorandum last month specifically said that rules designed to “transfer significant funds or intellectual property from American companies to the foreign government or the foreign government’s favored domestic entities” would trigger U.S. tariffs.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Bitcoin had a strong start in 2024, reaching an all-time high in January following interest rate cuts and the federal government’s embrace of the crypto industry. But all of those gains have been decimated over the past few weeks. And while that’s tough news for many digital asset holders, the decline has prompted some investors to wonder: is now a good time to buy the dip? 

Despite the industry’s seemingly favorable prospects under President Donald Trump, Bitcoin has dumped nearly 30% of its value since he took office, falling to a low of $78,000 earlier this month. Even as Trump follows through on a number of crypto-related promises—including establishing a national Ethereum exchange-traded funds, tells Fortune. “But I think that’s created this opportunity for investors.”  

To invest or not to invest?

The fact that Bitcoin has dipped does not mean that everyone should start buying crypto. In fact, digital assets have many detractors, who point to its recent arrival on the financial scene, volatility, and history of scams. 

“My position is that cryptocurrencies are impossible to value,” Artie Green, a certified financial planner from California, told Fortune. “We can determine the value of stocks, bonds, BDCs, etc. but cryptocurrencies are purely speculative.” 

He advises anyone interested in crypto investing to take stock of their finances first, make sure they have a buffer for unexpected expenses, and only invest excess funds. “The only way I would recommend buying Bitcoin is if you first create a comprehensive financial plan that determines how much money you will need to pay for all your living expenses & goals for the rest of your life,” he said. 

For people who do want to invest, there are several factors to consider before actually making a purchase, including technical sophistication and risk appetite. Those who don’t want to be involved in active trading should consider an exchange-traded fund (ETF)—a financial product sold on the traditional stock market which tracks the asset’s price. Major institutions like BlackRock and Fidelity offer Bitcoin ETFs to investors, but there are also crypto-specific ETF issuers like Grayscale and Bitwise. 

“There are lots of ways to invest in Bitcoin and crypto, and there are no necessarily wrong answers,” says Zach Pandl, managing director of research at crypto asset manager Grayscale. “Investors should first consider their own circumstances before making that decision.”

For people who want to actively trade their crypto, owning Bitcoin directly through a crypto exchange gives investors more flexibility and control over their holdings. Crypto exchanges like Kraken and Coinbase allow investors to buy, sell, trade and store their crypto, but the exchange maintains control of investors’ assets for them. The downside is that investors are more vulnerable if an exchange mismanages its funds like FTX, or is hacked like ByBit. 

Self-custody wallets like Metamask or Coinbase Wallet allow investors to actively use their crypto in trading and maintain control of their assets. However, this requires an understanding of blockchain technology. And there is the added problem of remembering logins: there is no “forgot my password” option to retrieve the funds. 

How much should you invest in Bitcoin?

People who do want to buy Bitcoin should think carefully about how much they want to invest. 

Crypto analysts and financial advisors have varying opinions on this topic. BlackRock, one of the world’s largest traditional asset managers, recommends that investors allocate no more than 2% of their portfolio to Bitcoin, saying that this amount maximizes returns while limiting the risks associated with volatility. 

Crypto-focused investment platforms, however, are more liberal, arguing Bitcoin is a great addition to an investment portfolio because it acts as a diversifying asset therefore, investors should allocate a larger percentage of their portfolio to the currency. Grayscale, a crypto ETF issuer, recommends allocating 5% and Swan, a Bitcoin-focused investment firm, recommends allocating up to 10% to Bitcoin. 

And moving forward, some crypto-watchers believe that the current dip won’t last much longer. James Butterfill, the head of research at crypto asset manager CoinShares, expects the currency to stabilize soon. 

“We’re getting close to that peak bearishness,” he said, adding that Bitcoin “seems to be showing quite a lot of resistance at around the $80,000 level.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com