Wells Fargo CEO announces AI will drive job cuts as bank pursues efficiency gains

The role of workforces in re-thinking their own futures in an AI-efficient world - Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have big plans

AI is going to claim more jobs at Wells Fargo, admits the financial services giant's CEO, but without the tech the company won't be able to operate as efficiently as it needs to in a highly-pressurised market. While that pronouncement from Charlie Scharf will doubtless send a shiver of trepidation down the spines of many Wells Fargo staffers about what 2026 might hold for them, it can hardly come as too much of a shock. Since he took up the CEO slot in 2019, Wells Fargo has shed around 65,00 jobs in the name of transformation and efficiency, taking out costs of around $15 billion across that time. Now with plans to roll out AI across next year, there's more to come in what he pitches as a "positive reality" for the bank. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs US Financial Services Conference, the direction of travel was made very clear in his pitch: We've gone from 275,000 people to 210,000 people or so, and we're not as efficient as we should be without the benefits of AI. A lot of it is just the continued examinations that we do as you peel the onion back, looking at where those opportunities are to actually do things more efficiently. AI is part of that process and an interesting conversation to be had, according to Scharf, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, he insists: [AI] is extremely significant, and anyone who doesn't say that...just doesn't know what they're talking about. Most people do, but they're afraid to say it because no-one wants to stand up and say that we're going to have lower headcount in the future. It's a difficult thing to say. But before Wells Fargo employees everywhere reach for their resumes, there is an upside in that it's not going to happen right across the company. Some divisions will escape the AI axe it seems, but they will have to be proving their worth: When you look at what we've been doing inside of Wells Fargo, we've rolled out these tools, Gen AI tools within our engineering workforce. We're 30% to 35% more efficient in terms of writing code today. We've not reduced the number of people we have coding today, but we're getting a lot more done. That's real efficiency. And seeking out other areas of the business where the same gains can be found will be a corporate priority: There are other places out there where we're going to be able to look and figure out how we're going to be able to do with less people, and then we're going to make the decision on does that mean we can invest more in certain areas or not? But anything that we do, you've got to look at and say you've got the capability to do something, because of Large Language Models [and] agentic AI, in ways that are very, very different today. It doesn't matter whether it's Compliance, whether it's Legal, whether it's call centers, whether it's pitch books in Investment Banking, credit memos in the Commercial bank, these are all opportunities to do things much, much more efficiently with AI than humans have been doing. Not that human intelligence won't have it's part to play alongside its artificial counterpart, he adds: It's not going to totally replace humans, but it does create an opportunity to do things significantly different. It's not next year in terms of what it's going to mean, but these are things that we're all building capabilities for that are going to start to roll out over a period of time. And the bank will be gentle with those impact, promises the CEO: We're going to be very careful about doing things in a way that are very responsible. We're trying to be very thoughtful about what it means for re-training workforces, use attrition as our friend. But it's a reality and I think it is a positive reality, but we've all got to be focused on what it means for the future. It's a sentiment that fits into the worldview from Goldman Sachs itself, whose One GS 3.0 strategy is also about the pursuit of efficiencies and includes a hefty dose of assumed AI, as CFO Denis Coleman confirms: It is at its core an effort to drive more scale and more growth. We think that there are opportunities to drive efficiency that should help unlock and enable that. We are comprehensively focused at multiple levels across the firm. We're focused on the quality, availability, accuracy, timeliness of our data. It's an underpinning to all of these AI exercises, making sure we have the right investment in platforms, particularly in activities that span across the firm. The firm's existing workforce is being encouraged to participate actively in this re-thinking of what the future looks like for all of them:

Wells Fargo CEO Envisions AI Influencing Staffing Decisions | PYMNTS.com

Speaking Tuesday (Dec. 9) at a Goldman Sachs-hosted conference, Charlie Scharf noted that his company has begun offering generative-AI tools to its engineers, making it 30% to 35% more efficient for them to write code. While it hasn't led to job cuts, teams are more productive. "We're not as efficient as we should be without the benefits of AI," said Scharf, whose comments were reported by Bloomberg News. The CEO added that there are many other places where the banking giant will be able to determine how to use large language models to do things differently with fewer workers. Examples of areas where this could happen include compliance and legal matters, call-center work, producing pitch books in Wells Fargo's investment-banking operation and writing credit memos for its commercial bank. As Wells Fargo continues to reduce costs, it will likely report more severance expenses during the first quarter compared to the earlier part of the year, said Scharf. Bloomberg noted the company has been cutting jobs for years to boost efficiency, and had more than 210,000 employees at the end of September. Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has examined the way AI in banking has entered its next era, one in which conversational interfaces have gone from simple Q&A bots to tools that can offer strategic insight and contextual counsel. Crucially, the research found that 75% of bank customers want greater personalization and that embedded conversational AI could win back 72% of them by offering that tailored experience. "Thus, cognitive banking is not just about automation -- it's about personal relevance, timing and trust," PYMNTS wrote earlier this year. Meanwhile, the PYMNTS Intelligence report "Workers Say Fears About Gen AI Taking Their Jobs is Overblown" found that 54% of workers who were employed, looking for work or studying when surveyed said AI presented a "significant risk of widespread job displacement." This concern was more heightened among respondents familiar with generative AI platforms at 57% compared to those unfamiliar at 41%. "Despite broad concern about general displacement, 38% of workers feared that generative AI could eventually lead to the elimination of their specific jobs," PYMNTS wrote earlier this year. "This personal job fear was higher among those using generative AI at least weekly (50%) compared to unfamiliar users (24%)."

Wells Fargo expects more job cuts, will roll out AI gradually in 2026

Dec 9 (Reuters) - Wells Fargo expects more cuts to its workforce and sees higher severance expenses in the current fourth quarter, CEO Charlie Scharf said on Tuesday, adding that artificial intelligence was set to change the way its business works. "We have gone through the budgeting process, and even pre-artificial intelligence, we do expect to have less people as we go into next year," Scharf said on the sidelines of a Goldman Sachs financial services conference. "We'll likely have more severance in the fourth quarter." AI COULD CHANGE HOW WORK IS CARRIED OUT Scharf said that AI was extremely significant, both in terms of the efficiencies it can drive and "what it is going to potentially do to headcount". He said AI would not entirely replace humans, but could change how work is carried out. He reiterated that the expected workforce decline reflects Wells Fargo's push for efficiency, echoing remarks he made in an interview last month. The CEO said Wells Fargo will roll out AI gradually over the next year and beyond, framing the changes as part of efforts to boost efficiency. He described the shift as a "positive reality" for the bank. AI is expected to lead to some workforce reductions, with substantial opportunities in the technology, Scharf said in an interview last month. Wells Fargo had 275,000 employees when Scharf joined in 2019. The bank has a little over 210,000 employees as of September 30, 2025. At the Goldman conference, he said that the bank was not yet as efficient as it would be with AI. "Gen AI tools within our engineering workforce were 30% to 35% more efficient in terms of writing code today. We've not reduced the number of people we have coding today, but we're getting a lot more done and that's real efficiency," Scharf said. ACQUISITION HURDLE RATES ARE HIGH The U.S. Federal Reserve lifted a $1.95 trillion asset cap on Wells Fargo in June, ending a key sanction tied to the bank's fake-accounts scandal and paving the way for expansion. Analysts and investors expect Wells Fargo to press ahead with growth under CEO Scharf, who took the helm in 2019 following the fake-accounts scandal that triggered public backlash and billions of dollars in penalties. However, Scharf said on Tuesday that Wells Fargo would only pursue acquisitions offering strong financial returns and clear strategic value for investors, and was under no pressure to snap up companies. "We have no interest in doing something which could just add a little bit of earnings to the company," he said. (Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru and Lananh Nguyen in New York; Editing by Susan Fenton, Paul Simao and Jan Harvey) By Pritam Biswas and Lananh Nguyen