BNY CEO Won't Say What It Spends On AI, Calling A Breakout 'Counterproductive'
Robin Vince said BNY runs $4 billion a year on technology against a $13 billion expense base, but AI stays folded into the inputs.
BNY Chief Executive Robin Vince told analysts on the bank's third-quarter earnings call that it will not break out what it spends on AI, even as the bank raised its 2026 expense-growth outlook to around the middle of a 7-8% range. Asked by a Wells Fargo analyst for the figure, Vince said publishing it "could be counterproductive."
What Vince said about the AI bill
Vince put the question in context: BNY spends $4 billion a year on technology and has a $13 billion expense base. AI, he said, folds into the inputs across that base, so the bank is not breaking it out.
He argued that obsessing over the number, publicly or inside the company, would not help. "We don't need false precision around exact perfection," he said. What matters, in his telling, is whether BNY is investing appropriately and earning a return. "The answer to the question is yes, we're generating return and yes, we want to lean in more."
The exception is what he called FinOps, or financial operations. There, Vince said, "we've put a lot of precision in" to manage token costs, meaning the usage charges for AI models, and to route each task to the right model. That routing is built into ELIZA, the bank's enterprise AI platform.
In a follow-up, Vince said scale helps on price. Partnerships with several AI labs support better commercial terms, he said, and the ability to pit models against each other lets BNY use an older or open-source model where it suffices. "You don't need a sledgehammer to crack a nut," he said.
The guidance behind the question
The question followed Chief Financial Officer Dermot McDonogh's outlook. He said BNY now expects 2026 expense growth, excluding notable items, around the middle of a 7-8% range, up 100 basis points (one percentage point). He tied that to higher revenue-related expenses from stronger revenue.
Revenue growth excluding notable items is now expected around the middle of a 12 to 13% range, market dependent, with net interest income up 15%. McDonogh said operating leverage, meaning revenue growth outpacing expense growth, should reach nearly 500 basis points for the year, versus 400 three months ago and slightly over 100 at the start of the year.
Third-quarter revenue was $5.7 billion, up 12% from a year earlier. Earnings per share were $2.34, up 24%. Expenses were $3.5 billion, up 8%, and McDonogh said more than three quarters of that increase was revenue-related.
AI in practice, and the stock
Vince told a Bank of America analyst that BNY has 400-plus AI solutions in production. He described three goals: creating internal capacity without growing expenses, improving products and creating new offerings for clients.
BNY shares were up 3.25% at $142.12 in Thursday trading, according to market data.
Vince's stated test for the spending is return, not cost, and he said on the call that the answer so far is that BNY wants to lean in more.
Sources
- BNY Mellon Adjusted Earnings Beat Estimates as Revenue Rises - WSJ — The Wall Street Journal
- Growth in Fee Income, Higher NII Likely to Support BNY's Q3 Earnings — Yahoo Finance
- BNY Q3 earnings beat, driven by fee revenue growth, solid NII (BNY:NYSE) | Seeking Alpha — seekingalpha.com
- BNY (BNY) Q3 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates — Yahoo Finance
- BNY Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results — prnewswire.com
