David Solomon, chair and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, warned that risks may be building in private credit and that the industry needs to be careful when widening access to retail investors, especially as there has not been a credit cycle in some time.

Solomon spoke at the annual Financial Markets Quality Conference hosted by the Georgetown Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy on 25 September in Washington D.C. He said Goldman Sachs was an early pioneer in private credit markets back in the mid-1990s, and the bank has deployed a total of $215bn into the segment over the last 30 years.

.@DavidSolomon, Chairman and CEO of @GoldmanSachs, joined our #FMQ conference to discuss everything from the global economy to artificial intelligence to the growth of private markets. But he also took time to discuss an emerging asset class: the business of sports. pic.twitter.com/0Xqq3gQTbT

— GU Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy (@GUFinPolicy) September 25, 2025

“Investment grade credit is an asset where people think the chance of them losing principal is very low,” he said. “But we are starting to do things in investment grade private credit formation, that reminds me of things we have done in the past when we have got into a little bit of trouble.”

He believes in providing wider access to  private credit with the appropriate rules, guardrails and protections.

“I think more of the financial risk in the system now exists outside the regulatory system,” he added. “I think we’ll go through a process of appropriately thinking about those things and trying to rebalance them.

Artificial intelligence

Goldman Sachs is using AI in two very simple ways, according to Solomon.

“First we have all these people who are super-productive and super-capable, and we want to get these tools into their hands to make them more productive and do more to serve our clients,” he added.

He compared the introduction of AI to when he started working in finance 40 years ago. After one year, he was given an IBM personal computer with Lotus 123 software, which was more productive than drawing spreadsheets on green graph paper.

“The more interesting opportunity that our firm is spending a lot of time on, is that this technology gives you an ability to reimagine operating processes in the business – not just change them at the margin, but fundamentally reimagine them,” said Solomon. “You can create productivity gains that allow you to redeploy into growth opportunities at a much faster pace.”

Goldman Sachs will spend $6bn on technology this year, according to Solomon. He said he would have liked to spend between $8bn and $10bn but has to find a balance with delivering returns for shareholders.

Solomon explained that increasing productivity allows Goldman Sachs to accelerate investment in growth and has identified six big areas where AI can be applied to reimagine processes. He gave the example of customer onboarding where there are 50 different processes across the firm for know your customer and anti-money laundering requirements. These processes are not automated and involve 3,800 people, who could be deployed into higher growth areas.

“This is a big theme and our research team believes that we can add 1% productivity compounded in the United States over the next 10 years, as enterprises look to deploy this technology,” said Solomon.

Growth strategy

Solomon became chief executive of Goldman Sachs in 2018 and chair in the following year. In October he will have led the bank for seven years and over the prior, Goldman Sachs stock has appreciated 250%, according to the introduction from Timothy O’Neill, former senior counselor in the executive office and member of the management committee of Goldman Sachs until he retired in 2022.

“You can’t be a public company and succeed without growing,” said Solomon.

He continued that one of the things that the management team changed in 2019 and 2020 was to develop a strategy for growth and significantly invest in the firm’s core business of investment banking and trading markets. Average revenues across the previous decade were around $34bn and are now approaching $60bn, according to Solomon. In addition the firm has doubled the balance sheet and increased capital from $70bn to about $108bn, so it  can do more with clients.

Solomon said one of the things he is excited about is the asset and wealth management business, which has a lot of capacity to continue to grow.

“That business is growing about 10% at the moment in terms of its revenues and we have told the world we’d like to grow it in the high single digits,” he added.