Bank of America Hires 1,000 Contractors for AI Flaws — SkimNews
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- Bank of America hired 1,000 outside contractors in Q2 to patch software flaws exposed by frontier AI models including Anthropic's Mythos, and those contractors remain on staff today on top of the bank's existing 3,000-person team in that area.
- Brian Moynihan told CNBC the bank spent "a couple hundred million plus" on software remediation and anti-money laundering compliance issues in Q3, calling the spending increase temporary because "once you patch, you don't have to patch as much."
- Bank of America has roughly 130 internal AI projects, with projected savings rising from $300 million this year to $700 million in 2027, per Moynihan's analyst remarks.
- Bank of America cut its headcount by about 3,400 employees in the past year, eliminating roughly 5% of managers, though the source notes it's unclear how much of that reduction is attributable to AI.
- Anthropic's Mythos was released in April to a small group of banks, technology firms, and government agencies, making BoA's disclosure one of the first by a major U.S. corporation to specify the manpower and dollars spent defending against the model.
- Bank of America shares slumped as much as 8% on Wednesday, the day Moynihan made the disclosure alongside the Q3 earnings release.
Why it matters: Moynihan frames the contractor spend as a one-time defensive cost while simultaneously projecting $700 million in AI-driven savings by 2027 — a $300M-to-$700M trajectory that, against "a couple hundred million plus" in current remediation outlays, suggests the bank views AI as a net financial winner even after absorbing the Mythos exposure. The 3,400-person headcount cut, also disclosed the same day, underscores the dual-edged trade-off the CEO is now explicitly pricing: AI both cuts payroll and forces costly code repair.
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