How will this go down among those who are trying to preserve or create jobs?

JPMorgan Chase has a program called COIN, for Contract Intelligence, that takes seconds to interpret commercial-loan agreements. Until the project went online in June, this work literally consumed 360,000 hours of work each year by lawyers and loan officers. Another benefit is that the software is less error-prone and never asks for vacation.

COIN has helped JPMorgan cut down on loan-servicing mistakes, most of which stemmed from human error in interpreting 12,000 new wholesale contracts per year.

While the financial industry has long touted its technological innovations, a new era of automation is now in overdrive as cheap computing power converges with fears of losing customers to startups. Made possible by investments in machine learning and a new private cloud network, COIN is just the start for the biggest U.S. bank. The firm recently set up technology hubs for teams specializing in big data, robotics and cloud infrastructure to find new sources of revenue, while reducing expenses and risks.

The push to automate mundane tasks and create new tools for bankers and clients - a growing part of the firm’s $9.6 billion technology budget - is a core theme as the company hosts its annual investor day on Tuesday.

Behind the strategy, overseen by COO Matt Zames and CIO Dana Deasy, is an undercurrent of anxiety: Though JPMorgan emerged from the financial crisis as one of few big winners, its dominance is at risk unless it aggressively pursues new technologies. That was the message Zames had for Deasy when he joined the firm from BP Plc in late 2013. The New York-based bank’s internal systems, an amalgam from decades of mergers, had too many redundant software programs that didn’t work together seamlessly.

After visiting companies including Apple Inc. and Facebook 3 years ago to understand how their developers worked, the bank set out to create its own computing cloud called Gaia that went online last year. Machine learning and big-data efforts now reside on the private platform, which effectively has limitless capacity to support their thirst for processing power. The system already is helping the bank automate some coding activities and making its 20,000 developers more productive, saving money, Zames said. When needed, the firm can also tap into outside cloud services from Amazon, Microsoft and IBM.

RISK:REWARD RATIO OF AI.   While growing numbers of people in the industry worry such advancements might someday take their jobs, many Wall Street personnel are more focused on benefits. A survey last year of more than 3,200 financial professionals found a majority expect new technology will improve their careers, for example by improving workplace performance.

“Anything where you have back-office operations and humans kind of moving information from point A to point B that’s not automated is ripe for that,” Deasy said. “People always talk about this stuff as displacement. I talk about it as freeing people to work on higher-value things, which is why it’s such a terrific opportunity for the firm.”