Saul Van Beurden is helping Wells Fargo tackle a question that concerns banks of all sizes: What will work look like in the age of AI?
He and his central team cannot and should not figure out what an AI-powered Wells Fargo looks like on their own. Van Beurden said banks must teach employees skills to remain competitive in a changing industry, and employees must choose to learn.
“You can’t deny things,” Van Beurden, head of AI and co-chief executive officer of Consumer Banking and Lending, told Business Insider. “But how do we ensure that everyone has a role to play and is accountable and responsible for themselves?”
The bank is focusing on AI literacy programs and demonstrations, among other things, in hopes of sparking “grassroots enthusiasm.” The goal is to make sure employees are familiar enough with the technology that they can be redeployed if their jobs change or be competitive in the job market if they leave Wells Fargo, he said. Wells Fargo is not mandating the use of AI, even as it bets the technology will help accelerate its growth following the Federal Reserve’s decision to lift the $1.95 trillion asset cap.
Van Beurden believes fluency starts outside the office. He’s building an agent to help prepare tax returns for 2026, but believes it’s important for employees to use AI in their personal lives as well.
“It’s really important to use it personally and understand the power of what it does, and we’re enabling that and allowing it to happen in the workplace,” he said.
Still, Van Beurden stressed that we all need to “remain cognitive,” as if left unchecked, AI could generate all of our ideas. He believes that while most college students are comfortable with technology, they should invest their time in activities like reading and playing chess. He thinks staying calm will help them in a generally brutal job market.
Wells’ workforce, like many of its competitors, is already being transformed by the impact of AI. “We’re probably going to have fewer employees in the future,” the bank’s CEO Charlie Scharf said in November, adding in December that generative AI was already increasing engineer productivity by up to 35%.
“That’s a big question,” Van Beurden said, without saying whether the bank would need 30% fewer engineers as a result or whether it would necessarily lead to changes in hiring. Instead, growth and employee numbers are not necessarily one-to-one, he said.
“How great would it be to grow because we didn’t have to hire people and created the ability to take on more customers with the same number of people?” He said AI is the “ideal tool” for that growth. Wells Fargo posted revenue of $21.3 billion in the fourth quarter, up 4% from a year ago. Revenue at the consumer bank overseen by Mr. Van Beurden rose 7% from the same period last year.
Executives at other major banks have said both publicly and in internal memos that AI will likely eliminate some jobs and slow hiring. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said his bank has a “major repositioning plan”.
Efficiency promises and big technology budgets aside, headcount reductions have yet to materialize at most banks. About 60% of the 240 financial services CEOs surveyed by EY said they expected AI investments to maintain or increase their workforce this year.
