Has AI cut jobs at Wells Fargo? The bank says its shrinking headcount started before AI

Wells Fargo has shed about 79,000 jobs in six years, reaching 197,000 staff by its second quarter of 2026, with 15,000 of that going in 2026 alone. The decline has now run for 24 consecutive quarters. On the July 15, 2026 earnings call, CFO Mike Santomassimo said the bank "should be able to run this company with less headcount than we've got today" and expected to see more efficiency from here. What the bank has not done is hand AI the credit. Speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference on December 9, 2025, CEO Charlie Scharf said that "even pre-artificial intelligence, we do expect to have less people as we go into next year". Asked where AI had measurably helped, he said generative AI had made the engineering workforce 30% to 35% more efficient at writing code, then added: "We've not reduced the number of people we have coding today, but we're getting a lot more done." No AI job-loss event is recorded here. A 24-quarter decline the employer says predates the technology is a cost programme, and the one team AI measurably sped up kept everyone.