The Morgan Stanley digital sign is seen at the corporate’s Times Square headquarters in Latest York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 12, 2016.
John Taggart | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Morgan Stanley promoted a tech executive in its wealth management division to grow to be the bank’s first head of firm-wide artificial intelligence, CNBC has learned.
The bank is elevating Jeff McMillan, a veteran of the Latest York-based bank, to assist guide its implementation of AI across the firm, in response to a memo sent Thursday from co-presidents Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz.
Last 12 months, Morgan Stanley became the primary major Wall Street firm to create an answer for workers based on OpenAI’s GPT-4, a project overseen by McMillan.
The move shows the rising importance of artificial intelligence in financial services, sparked by the meteoric rise of generative AI tools that create human-like responses to queries.
While Wall Street firms broadly pared back jobs last 12 months, they competed to fill hundreds of AI positions, poaching employees from each other.
In June, JPMorgan named Teresa Heitsenrether its chief data and analytics officer in control of AI adoption. At Goldman Sachs, Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti is seen because the lead AI advocate.
Read the complete Morgan Stanley memo announcing McMillan’s recent role:
We’re pleased to announce that Jeff McMillan has assumed a recent position as Head of Firmwide Artificial Intelligence, co-reporting to us.
Jeff previously led Wealth Management’s Analytics, Data and Innovation organization where he played a key role in driving Wealth Management’s technological evolution, from our Modern Wealth Management platform to most recently our groundbreaking work with our exclusive partner, OpenAI.
In his recent role, Jeff will coordinate across the Firm to make sure we now have the suitable AI strategy and governance in place. In doing so, he’ll partner with the business units and infrastructure areas to discover and prioritize AI opportunities; help position the Firm inside the flow of AI development across the industry and be certain that Morgan Stanley continues to be a well-respected innovator in AI.
To execute on our AI strategy, Jeff will work closely Mike Pizzi, Head of U.S. Banks and Technology, Sid Visentini, Head of Firm Strategy and Katy Huberty, Head of Global Research. Katy and Jeff will co-chair the Firmwide AI Steering Group, comprised of business unit and infrastructure representatives.
Please join us in congratulating Jeff on his recent role.
