Teresa Heitsenrether sees the hype that surrounds the latest AI models frequently nowadays, and she couldn't be less impressed. The chief data and analytics officer for JPMorganChase said AI's ultimate power lies in its ability to help employees with mundane tasks so they can be more efficient and serve customers better.
"AI, or any technology for that matter, is only valuable if it's used to solve real business problems," said Heitsenrether, chief architect of the New York bank's industry-leading data and AI strategy.
Few have scaled AI into their operations more aggressively than JPMC, which Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo has dubbed "the Nvidia of banking." The bank ranked first among financial services companies for the fourth straight year in Evident Insights' annual AI rankings, while its LLM Suite, a proprietary gen AI platform now connected to more than 100 internal and external data sources, was American Banker's 2025 Innovation of the Year.
Behind it all stands Heitsenrether, a member of the bank's powerful operating committee, who was tapped for the AI strategy role in 2023 after eight years as global head of securities services. (Heitsenrether reports jointly to Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon and COO Jennifer Piepszak.)
Heitsenrether's background shows in JPMC's common-sense approach to AI, treating it as a business tool that requires tight integration of the technology with high-quality data, clear context and strong permissions and governance.
"Her perspective as a seasoned business leader complements our technologists by keeping the focus on real outcomes and driving change that can scale," said Max Neukirchen, global co-head of J.P. Morgan Payments.
It's notoriously difficult to measure ROI from AI investments. To gauge effectiveness, Heitsenrether closely tracks AI tool adoption and the efficiency gains of users.
Those measures are heartening: Today, more than three-quarters of JPMC's 300,000-plus employees now use the technology — 173,000 of them weekly, a 30%+ increase year over year — which is telling. There are no top-down AI usage mandates; employees use the technology because it's working. Employees that use AI report an average of four hours in weekly productivity gains.
"Our experience to date shows that AI usage is creating value and efficiency across the board," she said. Employees "are finding and synthesizing information more quickly, developing ideas and creating solutions that previously would have required significantly more time or specialized technical support."
The number of AI solutions in production doubled in 2025, with business value impacts that are noteworthy. The asset and wealth management group, for example, has automated nearly 75% of equity trading, saving clients roughly $4 billion in trading costs since inception, and nearly 85% of foreign exchange trading.
It's an ongoing journey. Heitsenrether called 2025 "the year of the [AI] agents," and says the pace has continued in 2026. "We've seen a transformative shift from chatbot capabilities to AI that can execute complex workflows," she says. "We've spent a lot of time thinking about the implications of that shift," and strengthening the bank's data infrastructure and AI governance in response.
"Once a system can take action, rather than simply provide an answer, it needs boundaries," she said.
Heitsenrether announced in June that she will retire from JPMC at the end of the year. She plans to stay active professionally and recently joined the board of Fordham University, her alma mater. In November, she'll be joining the board of CVS Health Corp. Those organizations should benefit from her insights and business-first approach to AI.
