Goldman Sachs is turning to AI to level up its developer workforce — and its latest team member isn’t even human.
The global investment bank is testing an AI-powered software engineer from startup Cognition that can handle everything from writing code to fixing bugs and building full applications, with minimal human support, CNBC reports.
Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti said the bank sees this as the beginning of a new kind of collaboration between people and machines.
“We’re going to start augmenting our workforce with… our new employee who’s going to start doing stuff on behalf of our developers,” Argenti told CNBC.
Goldman Sachs is the first major bank to use the tool and believes this tech has the potential to significantly boost productivity across its 12,000-person developer team. And if it proves successful, the firm may roll out thousands of AI engineers across the organization.
What Makes The Goldman Sachs AI Engineer Different
This isn’t your average AI assistant that summarizes notes or drafts emails. The Goldman Sachs AI engineer, named Devin, is more advanced and built to work like a full-stack developer. That means it can take on complex, multi-step tasks from start to finish, something only human engineers handled until recently.
It’s part of a significant shift toward what’s called agentic AI — intelligent systems that don’t just help people work but actively execute tasks on their own. CNBC reports that companies like Microsoft and Alphabet are already using AI to generate up to 30% of code in some projects. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says AI now handles about 50% of the workload at his company.
Goldman Sachs expects its AI engineer to increase developer productivity by three to four times compared to older AI tools.
Developers Aren’t Being Replaced — Their Roles Are Evolving
Of course, the rise of automation often raises concerns about job security, especially in industries like finance and tech. But Argenti isn’t talking about replacing developers — he’s talking about reimagining their roles.
“It’s really about people and AIs working side by side,” he told CNBC. “Engineers are going to be expected to have the ability to really describe problems in a coherent way and turn it into prompts… and then be able to supervise the work of those agents.”
In this new hybrid model, developers become strategic thinkers and AI supervisors. It’s less about writing every line of code and more about guiding the process, reviewing the results, and focusing on bigger-picture innovation.
According to CNBC, Goldman Sachs plans to start with a few hundred AI engineers and expand the rollout to possibly thousands based on performance and demand.
What This Means For The Future Of Work
The Goldman Sachs AI engineer move is happening just as companies everywhere are figuring out what work really means in the age of AI. CNBC says banks around the world could cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next few years because of automation — but for developers who are curious, coachable, and comfortable learning new tech, it also opens doors to fresh opportunities.
Argenti, who previously led cloud efforts at Amazon before joining Goldman Sachs in 2019, says this is just the beginning. He calls it a “hybrid workforce” where AI takes care of the repetitive tasks and people focus on strategy, leadership, and creativity.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t hold a stake in Cognition, according to CNBC. But its decision to bring agentic AI into the mix shows the firm is betting on innovation.
