Bank of America Chief Technology and Information Officer Hari Gopalkrishnan at Semafor World Economy
This is a partner session produced by Semafor's commercial team. Semafor's editorial staff had no role in this video's creation or distribution.
Chief Technology & Information Officer, Bank Of America
Search every verified Hari Gopalkrishnan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote β each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. At the Semafor World Economy event on April 30, 2026, Bank of America Chief Technology and Information Officer Hari Gopalkrishnan discussed the institution's approach to artificial intelligence deployment. He described a shift from proof-of-concept projects focused on small tasks to end-to-end process transformation aimed at revenue, client experience, or expenses. Gopalkrishnan stated that the bank uses a prioritization model combining top-down business strategies with bottom-up ideas from over a hundred listening sessions with employees, generating thousands of suggestions on reducing toil-based activities. He said these are prioritized against $4 billion in new investments. Gopalkrishnan also highlighted the bank's focus on data, compute, security, resiliency, governance, and human oversight as crucial for AI in finance. He noted that Bank of America has established an academy for reskilling and upskilling on AI, covering topics from basic prompt engineering to advanced development, and that 44% of jobs in recent years were filled through internal mobility. He expressed optimism about AI's potential to improve client service through data, personalization, and digitization.
“The big pivot from last year to this year I'd characterize in four dimensions. First is shifting from proof of concepts that were focused on small tasks to actual end-to-end process transformation where you're going after big opportunities that are going to transform either revenue, client experience or expenses.”
“We're trying to shift away from each individual team building their own things and understanding where we can build enterprise capabilities that can be reused repeatedly. The third piece is getting governance right. This stuff is very hard to govern. If you overdo it, you stall innovation. If you underdo it, you introd...”
“Our prioritization model is a combination of top down where we have a bunch of business strategies... But in addition to that, we are holding listening sessions with our teammates. We've generated about thousands of ideas where our teammates are telling us, 'Hey, here's where I'm spending too much of my time in toil-ba...”
“First thing is data. I mean, you have to know who your clients are. You have to know everything you know about them. Interactions, transactions on us, off us data set. So data is truly the fuel behind all the work we're doing around AI and along with that compute. These models aren't cheap. They're not inexpensive. The...”
This is a partner session produced by Semafor's commercial team. Semafor's editorial staff had no role in this video's creation or distribution.
How can AI be designed from the customer back and not the model forward? Hari Gopalkrishnan, Chief Technology and Information Officer at Bank of America, joins Peter High to share how one of the world's largest financial institutions grounds its AI strategy in user behavior. From developing Erica to enabling employees with tools like Ask Merrill, Hari explains why every AI solution must begin with real customer or employee friction. π§ An audio-only version of this interview is available as episode 1028 of Metis Strategyβs podcast, #Technovation with Peter High. π Learn more: https://www.metβ¦
Hari Gopalkrishnan, Chief Information Officer and Head of Consumer, Business & Wealth Management Technology, Bank of America; Jody Kalmbach, Group Vice President, Product Experience, The Kroger Co.; and Ravi Radhakrishnan, Chief Information Officer, American Express Company talk with Bloomberg's Lisa Mateo about how they have optimized customer service with AI assistants at The Business Value of AI event in New York. -------- Subscribe to Bloomberg Live on YouTube: Β Β Β /Β @bloomberg_liveΒ Β
Hari Gopalkrishnan, Head of Retail, Preferred, Small Business & Wealth Management Technology, Bank of America speaks with Bloombergβs Janet Wu at the Bloomberg Intelligent Automation event in New York. -------- Subscribe to Bloomberg Live on YouTube: Β Β Β /Β @bloomberg_liveΒ Β
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