Goldman Sachs sees two opportunities from its AI initiatives: driving internal efficiencies and helping clients make more money. 

The investment bank plans to harness “the tremendous public and private capital fueling growth in AI,” Chief Executive David Solomon said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call today. 

“We’re especially well-positioned to help sponsors deploy the $1 trillion of dry powder they hold and monetize the roughly $4 trillion of value across their portfolio companies.” 

Investors are keen to spend on high-growth segments like transportation, AI buildout, or data centers and infrastructure development, Solomon said.  

“In 2026 our focus is continuing to grow lending activities, and the lending penetration [and] we made good progress there” in 2025, he said.

Internal AI 

As the investment bank looks to provide capital flows to AI tech, it is also focused on deploying AI internally to drive efficiencies. 

In 2025, Goldman launched its AI-native operating platform GS 3.0, which embeds AI into processes like KYC, regulatory reporting and lending, and provides the AI-driven GS AI Assistant tool to employees. 

“We’re not going to transform the whole firm with AI,” Solomon said. “We are focused on our two core businesses driving growth,” wealth management and investment banking. 

AI is an opportunity for us to drive productivity and efficiency in the organization by deploying it in existing channels, Solomon said, adding that savings generated from AI can be reinvested in the business. 

“It’s not just [to] take cost out, but it’s also to free up capacity to invest in other areas where we see growth opportunities where we have been a little bit constrained,” he said. 

Goldman Sachs doesn’t know what metrics — headcount, efficiency ratio or revenue per employee, for example — will define AI success but believes the tech will make the bank more robust over time, he said. 

BY THE NUMBERS: For the quarter, the New York-based investment bank reported:  

• Communications and tech expense of $589 million, up 13% year over year; 

• Net revenue of $13.5billion, down 3% YoY;  

• Headcount of 47,400, up 2% YoY; and  

• Efficiency ratio of 72.3%, up 12% YoY. 

Riding the M&A tide 

The bank reported growing revenue from M&A, Solomon said, adding that Q4 was one of the best quarters in years. 

For 2025, Goldman reported $9.34 billion in revenue from investment banking, which includes completed M&A deals, up 21% YoY, according to its earnings report. 

The bank announced $1.62 trillion worth of M&A deals during the year, compared with $1.36 trillion in M&A transactions at its closest competitor, according to the report. 

“M&A transactions often kick off a flywheel activity across our entire franchise, whether it’s acquisition financing, hedging activity, secondary market making or investing opportunities for our clients,” Solomon said.  

Apple Card offloading 

Goldman Sachs has been moving away from retail banking, as illustrated by its sale of home improvement lending platform GreenSky and phase-out of its robo-advisory platform over the past few years. 

The bank in Q4 also offloaded its marquee retail banking asset, Apple Card, to JPMorgan, which unlocked $2.48 billion in reserves tied to the credit card’s provision of losses, according to the company’s earnings report. 

Goldman Sachs [NYSE: GS] stock was up 4.6% to $975.86 at market close today. Goldman Sachs has a market capitalization of $295.4 billion. 

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