JPMorgan plans to boost its technology budget by almost $2 billion this year, to $19.8 billion — a roughly 10% increase compared to 2025.
Speaking at the firm’s 2026 company update on Monday, CFO Jeremy Barnum said “technology remains a major driver of our expense growth,” which is up around $9 billion for the year. The bulk of the tech expenses comes from $1.2 billion in investments, including some AI-related projects.
Later in the presentation, CEO Jamie Dimon said that returns on AI are difficult to quantify initiative by initiative. Answering a question from Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo, who pressed him on the bank’s technology spend on a recent earnings call, Dimon said that time saved is often “too vague” to measure concretely.
“I think the hardest thing to measure has always been tech projects,” Dimon said. “That’s been true my whole life.”
When it comes to where the firm is investing, Barnum said it’s focusing on “the highest impact areas,” such as customer service in call centers, personalized insights for clients, and technology for software engineers. GenAI is, Barnum told investors, growing as a proportion of the bank’s AI usage.
Some of the $2 billion increase is due to inflation hitting everyone, including higher AI hardware costs. Technology head count growth isn’t a major driver — Barnum said the bank has budgeted in some additional head count in the area to work on new products, but that the culture generally discourages hiring more people whenever a new opportunity arises.
Despite JPMorgan’s status as a tech-forward firm — and No. 1 ranking on Evident AI’s index of AI maturity at banks — executives didn’t brush off competition. Marianne Lake, in response to an earlier question from Mayo, said the bank has some strategic assets, including in data.
“Only the paranoid survive,” Lake, the CEO of consumer and community banking, said. “We aren’t walking around thinking we have the divine right to success, we are walking around thinking about how to optimize the value that we give to our customers, how to perfect our processes and our systems.”
JPMorgan isn’t the only bank spending big on technology. Its rivals are also rapidly integrating AI throughout trading floors, back offices, and more to create efficiencies and improve customer experiences. Bank of America said it plans to spend around $14 billion on technology this year.
Dimon has previously asked investors to “trust him” on his bank’s spending, saying he is trying to keep the company from falling behind during its January earnings call.
“We need to have the best tech in the world,” he continued. “That drives investment, it drives margin, it drives competition.”
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