Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan Talks 2026 Outlook, AI & More
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For our Bloomberg audiences worldwide, I'm David West, and I'm delighted to be joined now by Brian Moynihan. He is indeed the chair and CEO of Bank of America. So first of all, happy holidays, Brian. Great to be with you.
Happy holidays, David. Good to see you again.
So let's start with the year. It's been a very strong year for the markets. By the way, a very strong year for Bank of America and the markets. The economy's done well, not as well perhaps as the markets might indicate. Do you think the economy is in better shape because the markets are really over-predicting what's going on?
Look, as you look at our team, we have a great research team, as you know, David. Their projection for 26 is a strong economy, 2.4% U.S. GDP growth. And that's strong not only on a relative basis to trend above 2%, which is the trend, it's strong that way, but it's also strong relative to the rest of the world in the sense that It you see that other basically whether it's your way or Japan, other parts of the economy, you predict those to be flat down. And so it's strong on an absolute basis relative to the United States history and strong on a relative basis to the other economies. And that's because, frankly, the great American engine of capitalism consumers are driving it and the markets are valuing that future growth rate.
And that's why they've been very, very constructive this year.
How much of that engine that you talk about is AI investment? Because that certainly has kicked in this year. How much of the growth is really attributable only to the AI investment?
You know, I think you'd have to get people to parse it. But for this year, frankly, the investment's been building during the year and is probably a bigger contributor next year and the years beyond. And so if you look at the data center build out, which is one of the ways that evidence itself, that's a big deal. If you look at customer or client spending like us spending on AI, that's higher than it was last year. But frankly, overall, spending levels are shifting towards that, not necessarily growing exponentially. at a mid-single-digit rate type of number. So I think that's part why the reason we feel constructive for next year. We think AI spending continues. We think there's benefits to the American taxpayer from tax rebates, lower taxes due to the tax bill going through and being effective for next year.
And we think the expensing and other bonuses for businesses are good. So all that leads to our confidence that we go from basically a 2% type of growth rate level this year, plus or minus up to 2.4%, which is all due to that. And AI is kicking in more and more. And so it's not only attributable to AI, but that's having a marginal impact that's pretty strong.
So much of the American economy is supported by the consumer. And you at Bank of America have a really powerful viewpoint into the American consumer. How's the American consumer doing? Because it has been very strong. There have been some people saying it's starting to slow down.
Yeah. And so I think... You have to step back. We look at American consumers, 70 million consumers, putting $4.5 trillion plus into the American economy every year.
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