One of the world’s leading financial figures has warned AI will inevitably lead to a cut in jobs amid growing jitters around the impact the new tech will have on the banking sector.

Jamie Dimon – the top boss of America’s largest bank, JP Morgan – said: “I think [AI] will reduce our jobs down the road.

“There will be all different types of jobs, and I think we will be hiring more AI people and fewer bankers in certain categories – it will make them more productive”.

The Wall Street chief’s remarks come after Standard Chartered revealed a drastic manoeuvre where it plans to slash almost 8,000 back-office roles, amplifying fears of a jobs reckoning in the sector.

Bill Winters, the firm’s chief executive, stoked controversy by pushing back against claims of “cost-cutting” and instead said it was “replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and investment capital we’re putting in”.

Dimon told Bloomberg the comment as “an inartful way to say something” but added Winters was a “friend” and “all of us say something incorrectly.”

Banking AI arms race heats up

It comes as an arms race ramps up across the incumbent banking giants and digital challengers as firms rush to beef up their tech and leverage AI.

Revolut waded in with the debut of its personal finance assistant last month, which followed a similar move by Starling the month prior.

City AM revealed in April that Lloyds Banking Group had entered a tie-up with Google to build its own AI agents.

Dimon said on Thursday it was “incumbent upon us, society, to think if it happens too fast”.

“You aren’t going to stop it all, you know. And you can talk all you want, do the work, get prepared, take care of your people, take care of society, and I think we’ll be okay.”

Georges Elhedery, chief executive of HSBC, warned earlier this week that the bank’s staff must avoid “fighting us” as it unveiled its latest AI adoption plans at an investor day event.

“We all know ​generative AI will destroy certain jobs and will create new jobs,” the blue-chip bank’s chief said.

JP Morgan currently occupies the top spot in the Evident AI Index, which serves as a global benchmark for AI integration in the banking sector. In the UK, three FTSE 100 lenders make it in the top 20 with HSBC at eighth and Lloyds and Natwest trailing at 15 and 16 respectively.