OpenAI Pays Ex-Bankers to Automate Junior Roles

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00:00OpenAI is said to be employing over 100 former investment bankers to train its AI in building

00:05financial models. Bloomberg has learned that the aim is to automate the intensive grunt work

00:10typically done by junior bankers. For more, we're joined by Bloomberg's Amal El-Shmouri,

00:14who broke this story, major story, very interesting. It's called Project Mercury.

00:19What exactly are OpenAI doing? Good morning, Jamal. Project Mercury is

00:23an effort by OpenAI to make its technology mimic the financial models done by investment bankers.

00:30So they've contracted about 100x investment bankers to write simple prompts and then execute

00:38financial models ranging from restructurings to IPOs. And this is followed by a review process

00:43after which their work is plugged into OpenAI's system. And they're being paid about $150 an hour,

00:48which might not sound excessive, but it is the equivalent of about $300,000 a year for a 40-hour

00:54workweek. Yeah, but also participating, perhaps eliminating your future job by giving all this

00:59Intel to OpenAI. Why is OpenAI doing this? Right. So OpenAI has achieved a valuation

01:05of $500 billion earlier this month, making it the world's most valuable startup.

01:09But it is yet to turn a profit. So it's under increased pressure from both investors and

01:13competitors to come up for use cases for AI. And Project Mercury falls under these efforts.

01:19Yeah. Well, ultimately, how's this going to impact investment banks?

01:21Well, the article has been shared over 25,000 times, so there's a lot of concern. On one

01:28hand, you've got people worried that it's going to replace the jobs of junior bankers. And by

01:32extension, they're also asking if junior bankers are sort of phased out, what's going to happen

01:37to senior ones? But to end on a more optimistic note, the others think that it's going to augment

01:43the work of investment bankers instead of replacing them. That's the hope.