Bank of America Hires 1,000 Contractors as AI Raises Cyber Costs
CEO Brian Moynihan says the bank expanded software remediation work after frontier AI models exposed a new level of vulnerability risk.
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Bank of America hired 1,000 external contractors to help patch software vulnerabilities after advanced AI models sharply increased the ability to find and exploit weaknesses, Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said on Wednesday.
The contractors were brought in during the second quarter and continue to work alongside about 3,000 employees already assigned in the area, Moynihan told CNBC after the bank reported third-quarter results.
“That risk is real risk,” Moynihan said. “We put on 1,000 contractors to help us do the patching work in the second quarter, and those people remain here today, helping us, on top of the 3,000 people we have in that area.”
The work followed the emergence of models including Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview, introduced in April through Project Glasswing.
Anthropic said the model could find and exploit software vulnerabilities at a level exceeding all but highly skilled human researchers and initially restricted access to selected organizations for defensive work.
Bank of America spent a “couple hundred million plus” during the third quarter on software remediation and work related to anti-money laundering regulatory issues, Moynihan told analysts.
The spending illustrates a less visible cost of the AI boom for large companies. While AI tools can automate work and reduce operating expenses, stronger cyber capabilities can also force businesses to review and repair older software more quickly.
“We’ve got to stay ahead of them, and we’ve got to be mindful that the people doing the software development are the people trying to sell us the services,” Moynihan told CNBC.
He said the elevated remediation spending should decline as vulnerabilities are addressed.
AI is producing savings elsewhere at the bank. Bank of America has about 130 internal AI initiatives, which Moynihan said are expected to generate about $300 million in savings this year and $700 million in 2027.
The bank reported third-quarter net income of $6.9 billion, or 91 cents a diluted share, according to its official results released Wednesday.
Moynihan said Bank of America’s headcount had fallen by about 3,400 over the past year, including a roughly 5% reduction in managers, though he did not attribute the overall decline specifically to AI.
