A.I. Is Eliminating Jobs on Wall Street

Less than four months ago, Bank of America’s chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, volunteered in a TV interview what he would say to his 210,000 employees about the chance of artificial intelligence replacing human work.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said. “It’s not a threat to their jobs.”

Last week, after Bank of America reported $8.6 billion in profit for the first quarter — $1.6 billion more than the same period a year earlier — Mr. Moynihan struck a different tone.

The bank’s bottom line, he said, was helped by shedding 1,000 jobs through attrition by “eliminating work and applying technology,” which he repeatedly specified was artificial intelligence. He predicted more of that in the months and years to come.

“A.I. gives us places to go we haven’t gone,” Mr. Moynihan said.

The veneer of Wall Street’s longstanding assertion — that A.I. will enhance human work, not replace it — is rapidly peeling away, as evidenced by the current quarterly earnings season. JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo racked up $47 billion in collective profits, up 18 percent, while shedding 15,000 employees.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/business/ai-job-cuts-wall-street.html