Bank of America Corp. (BAC): Key takeaways from management meeting

Research evidence excerpt

Equity Research

10 September 2026 | 4:02PM EDT

Bank of America Corp. (BAC): Key takeaways from management meeting

On September 9th, we hosted a meeting with BAC’s: 1) Chief Technology and

Information Officer, Hari Gopalkrishnan; 2) Head of Corporate Strategy and

Operational Excellence, Jeff Busconi; and 3) Head of Investor Relations, Lee

McEntire. Further detail within.

BAC’s technology strategy is focused on: 1) strengthening risk, regulatory and

security controls foremost; and 2) prioritizing ROI and efficiency when

evaluating discretionary technology investments. In recent years, the company

noted that discretionary investments have increasingly shifted to AI centric

initiatives from traditional digital transformation. In addition, the company

highlighted its operational excellence framework as a differentiated tool in evaluating

discretionary (particularly AI related) technology spend. BAC had mapped 3,700

firmwide processes which allows them to assess the workflow impact of each

proposed project, and whether the expected efficiency uplift justifies the investment

spend.

The company highlighted that it has remained ROI focused on its technology

spend, with savings from efficiency gains partially self funding incremental

investment. In addition, BAC noted that growth within its tech spend has been

largely driven by its discretionary tech investment budget (~$4bn of ~$13bn total)

which has scaled ~45% vs. only ~15% growth in its core operational tech over the

past decade. On incremental discretionary investments, the company noted it

targets a ~3 year pay back on average.

Richard Ramsden

+1(212)357-9981 |

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

James Yaro

+1(212)902-1913 |

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Divyam Harlalka

+1(332)245-7818 |

Goldman Sachs India SPL

Matthew Weng

+1(212)902-8484 |

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Lokesh Kumar Sangewar

+1(332)245-7846 |

Goldman Sachs India SPL

Thirukumaran R

+1(332)245-7608 |

Goldman Sachs India SPL

Management believe incremental efficiency gains from AI will likely be

meaningful, but can be difficult to size numerically, as revenue based

improvements and reinvested expense savings are harder to track. The company

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