JP Morgan's Mary Callahan Erdoes says 'curiosity' will be the most important human trait in the age of AI

Mary Callahan Erdoes weighed in on the trait humans need to make to most of AI. Heidi Gutman/CNBC

• JPMorgan’s CEO of Asset & Wealth Management, Mary Callahan Erdoes, spoke with BI about AI.
• She believes curiosity is the key trait humans need to harness the potential of AI.
• “It has to be okay to ask the questions,” Erdoes said.

One of JPMorgan’s top execs believes a single human trait will define the winners of the AI age.

“Curiosity,” Mary Callahan Erdoes, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase’s Asset and Wealth Management division, told Business Insider in an interview. “It has to be OK to ask the questions, to not know, to not be afraid, and then to keep going with the questions.”

Erdoes spoke Tuesday morning at “Leading with AI,” a conference hosted by Harvard’s Digital Data Design Institute, on which she serves as an advisor, and Harvard Business School, where the school’s alums and leaders in business, technology, and academia discussed the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence. JPMorgan has also partnered with Harvard’s Digital Data Design Institute to research ways to leverage the technology across its business.

At JPMorgan, Erdoes said conversations about AI are happening “every day” and that she engages with the technology frequently. She believes successfully implementing AI requires curiosity from employees at all ranks — from managers at the top to workers at the bottom.

“If we can infuse that in all of our people, we will move faster to get to what we all really want to get to,” and that’s understanding if there are “entirely new products, processes, procedures, solutions for clients,” she said.

She said that once people learn to leverage AI, they can “make the gunk go faster” in their jobs and help clients in more complex ways.

The looming threat of AI is that it’ll advance to the point where it eliminates some jobs. But Erdoes hopes it will only eliminate “the no-joy” work that “people shouldn’t have to do.”

“Companies that take their employees through that journey and they combine the human with the AI to augment their job, their joy and the ability to serve the client will be successful,” She said.

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