Banks lay groundwork for mass workforce cuts as AI takes hold

In the hope he’ll land a job in finance, Andre Bonnick spends hours rehearsing what he’s going to say. He’s using key words from job listings, making eye contact — following advice he’s gotten from recruiters. But Bonnick, a student at Warwick University, isn’t preparing to talk to a human hiring manager. He’s tackling initial screening rounds done by artificial intelligence-powered software. With more firms adopting AI, students gunning for a career in banking and finance are preparing to be up against such technology at first interaction. If they get in the door, they’re then faced with the question of whether the jobs will be available to humans in the next few years. Most executives are in agreement: Jobs will be cut as AI is implemented. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in December that the technology “will eliminate jobs.” Jane Fraser, Citigroup Inc.’s CEO, said some jobs “will no longer be required,” while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Waldron referred to employees as a “human assembly line” ripe for automation. As Standard Chartered Plc CEO Bill Winters put it: “It’s not cost cutting; it’s replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in.” (He later apologized for his remarks.) With those recent comments, industry workers have been left dazed about whether their jobs are safe. Even for those in higher levels, the risk that AI could eventually replace their roles has grown. And while executives, including Dimon and Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer CS Venkatakrishnan, have talked about retraining and reskilling employees to protect some jobs, it’s unclear how that would work in practice, said David Parsons, an employment lawyer at Mishcon de Reya. One investment banker in the United Arab Emirates, who asked not to be identified, joked he may not be needed in the next five to 10 years, after he used Microsoft Corp.’s Copilot to help make a last-min