Goldman Sachs Pilots Devin AI Agent to Boost Developer Productivity

Goldman Sachs, one of the world's leading investment banks, is taking a significant step forward in AI adoption by piloting Cognition's viral coding agent, Devin, as a digital team member within its technology division. The move was confirmed by Marco Argenti, the bank’s Chief Information Officer, in a recent interview with CNBC.

Devin: The AI Developer Assistant

Devin, developed by Cognition (cognition.ai), is an autonomous AI coding agent designed to assist with software development tasks. Since its debut, Devin has made waves across tech communities, with its capabilities and limitations widely discussed. The latest iteration, Devin 2.1, reportedly performs best when working on large codebases with ample context, making it well-suited for enterprise environments.

How Goldman Sachs Is Using Devin

The bank currently employs around 12,000 human software engineers. With this pilot, Goldman Sachs aims to augment—not replace—its human talent by rolling out hundreds, and potentially thousands, of Devin "instances". Each instance will serve as a digital colleague, supervised by human developers for quality assurance and collaboration.

• Hybrid Workforce: Goldman Sachs is committed to a "hybrid" model, where AI agents like Devin work alongside humans, enhancing productivity rather than eliminating jobs.
• Developer Copilots: The company has been experimenting with developer copilots since at least 2024, showing a consistent interest in cutting-edge technology to streamline internal workflows.

Challenges and Opportunities

While Devin's initial launch drew both excitement and skepticism—some researchers noted struggles with highly complex coding tasks—its continued improvement has made it an attractive tool for large organizations. The bank's leadership believes that supervised AI agents can help boost productivity, reduce repetitive workloads, and accelerate software delivery cycles.

Industry Context

Financial institutions are often viewed as slow to embrace new technologies. However, Goldman Sachs has a proven track record of adopting innovative solutions, positioning itself at the forefront of digital transformation in banking. The successful integration of AI agents like Devin could set a precedent for other firms looking to enhance their technological capabilities.

References

• "We’re going to start augmenting our workforce with Devin, which is going to be like our new employee," Argenti told the outlet, adding that it plans to rollout hundreds of instances of Devin, potentially growing to thousands.
• Despite the financial industry’s reputation for being slow and stodgy, Goldman Sachs tends to be cutting edge, and it’s been internally using developer copilots since at least 2024, it said.
• Some researchers then found that it struggled with more complex coding work.
• As of May, Devin is now on version 2.1, and Cognition says, performs best on large codebases that provide it with ample context.