Citadel CEO Ken Griffin Says AI Is Changing the Role of Highly Skilled Talents

After previously brushing off AI as overhyped, Ken Griffin, Citadel's CEO, now says the technology has reached a point where it can take on tasks once reserved for highly skilled finance talents.  

The comment stands in stark contrast to remarks he made during the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, where he argued that while AI appeared impressive on the surface, “as soon as you dig deeper, it’s all garbage.” 

In his recent statement during a conversation with professors at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Ken Griffin remarked that “in the last few months, there has been a step change function in the productivity of AI toolkit,” while adding that it is now “profoundly more powerful than it was just nine months ago.” 

His remarks add to growing claims from CEOs across industries that AI is increasingly capable of doing work once handled by highly skilled white-collar professionals, pushing many companies to rethink how they operate. According to him, it has allowed Citadel, an American multinational hedge fund and financial services company, to unleash a much broader array of use cases for AI.  

How AI is Impacting Work 

Much of AI’s impact on jobs has so far played out inside the tech industry, where tools such as OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code are increasingly being used to speed up software engineering work. Tasks that once took teams of developers days or weeks can now be completed in significantly less time. Companies, including Cloudflare, have also pointed to AI efficiencies as part of broader workforce reductions.