Bank of America’s CEO Told Employees ‘You Don’t Have to Worry’ About AI Replacing Jobs — Four Months Later, He Cut 1,000

Four months ago, the Bank of America CEO told his 210,000 employees, “You don’t have to worry” about AI replacing their jobs. Last week, after reporting $8.6 billion in quarterly profit, he credited AI with eliminating 1,000 positions through attrition by “applying technology.” Translation: AI is cutting jobs, and it’s just getting started.

Moynihan isn’t alone. Six major Wall Street banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo — collectively made $47 billion in profits, up 18%, while shedding 15,000 employees. All of them credited AI to some degree with automating work, from back-office compliance to front-office financial transactions.

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf has been the most blunt about it. “These are all opportunities to do things much, much more efficiently with AI than humans have been doing,” he said in December. Most other bank chiefs “are afraid to say it because no one wants to stand up and say that we are going to have lower headcount in the future.”