JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is pressing corporate leaders to join a US-focused group built to confront the risks of AI, as companies race to deploy the technology. Dimon has personally called the CEOs of other large and regional banks and IT firms to bring them in, expanding a group JPMorgan helped found: the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure. He and the ACI are setting up calls in August to discuss collaboration. The outreach began in July and spans more than 40 companies across financial services, energy, water, utilities, telecoms, airlines, railroads and other technology-dependent infrastructure. The ACI has not disclosed results. As head of the largest US bank, Dimon is one of the few CEOs publicly warning about advanced AI, and his views carry weight. The plan is to build a shared understanding of how AI is being used, the risks it poses and the safeguards needed, and to work with the Trump administration on those issues. Recent cyberattacks on water systems in Minnesota and other states have sharpened the case for information sharing. JPMorgan founded the ACI alongside Mastercard, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and others. The group coordinates cross-sector resilience planning, shares information and responds to critical infrastructure threats, cyber, physical and geopolitical. A team within it is now refocusing the ACI and building up the AI effort. Dimon said the group’s leadership saw the need to prioritise AI “years ago and got critical infrastructure companies working together,” adding: “We are proud to support this important work.” The ACI said that “at a time of growing cyber threats, protecting the systems Americans rely on every day requires strong collaboration between government and critical infrastructure companies.” Mastercard and Berkshire did not respond to requests for comment. The group would act as an industry response and information-sharing forum, working with government to identify core AI and technology risks and solve problems as they surface. One source said the aim is to have the revamped ACI fully functional by year-end. Dimon has warned specifically about Anthropic’s Mythos model, arguing access to advanced AI must be controlled. He said in July: “you’re giving ballistic missiles to individuals with Mythos.” The ACI effort is separate from a banking-industry effort to test Mythos. Washington has moved too. In July it launched the Gold Eagle initiative, bringing together AI developers, critical infrastructure operators and federal agencies to share vulnerabilities found by advanced AI models and coordinate fixes. The Herald View: When the CEO of America’s biggest bank starts making personal phone calls, it isn’t a committee, it’s a signal. Dimon has decided AI risk is too big for any one firm or regulator to hold, and he’s building the coordination layer himself before Washington does. The subtext is control: whoever convenes the room shapes the rules. Banks that sit this out will inherit standards written without…

Singapore’s second-largest bank plans to spend more than S$1 billion annually on AI, digital and data initiatives Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, Singapore’s second-largest bank, plans to hire 600 additional relationship managers over the next three years, its executives said on Wednesday at the launch of the bank’s AI avatar app for wealth clients. Group CEO Tan Teck Long said he expects the bank to spend more than S$1 billion (US$771.78 million) annually over the next few years on OCBC’s AI, digital and data initiative. The new OCBC WoW app will initially be offered in beta form to selected employees and customers by invitation. The invited customers have at least S$1.5 million in assets under management and are served by OCBC Premier Private Client Advisers. The bank has invited 50 customers to try out the beta version over the next six months, before launching it to other clients in its wealth segment over the following 12 months. Tan said the lender was “changing the face of banking” by using avatars and personalised services, starting with wealth management. The move is part of OCBC’s Next Frontier Strategy, announced in February, which places AI, digital services and data at the centre of the bank’s next stage of growth. OCBC said the app will later add more languages, insurance products and banking…