By Rebecca Ungarino

Developments across artificial intelligence will eventually affect virtually all of Wells Fargo, from the corporate finance team assessing analyst reports to people at call centers answering customers' questions, finance chief Mike Santomassimo said on Tuesday.

"It'll have an impact on pretty much every part of the company at some point," Santomassimo said during a financial industry conference held by UBS in Florida. "We've got dozens and dozens of different use cases that are being piloted in some form across the company."

Wells Fargo has rolled out AI capabilities in some branches to try to make branch-based bankers' and tellers' jobs easier as they deal with "hundreds" of different policies and procedures in the course of their work, he said. And eventually, AI will help do the jobs of call-center staff who put information into the bank's systems after talking with customers over the phone, Santomassimo added.

For areas such as the bank's finance teams, AI will "do a lot of things for you that are manual today," such as reading Wall Street analyst reports and evaluating their tone and the most important points, he said.

Lenders have been using AI for years. Compliance teams, for instance, have long used the technology in the course of analyzing vast amounts of client data to monitor whether unusual payment and deposit patterns indicate fraud or money-laundering activity.

But as the use of generative AI has spread in recent years because of new products from OpenAI, Alphabet, and Microsoft, Wall Street firms have started to use the technology more aggressively. That has led to predictions and fear that automation and the cost savings and productivity gains it may yield will eliminate roles across banking.

That means that in public remarks, banking executives walk a fine line, talking up their innovations and efficiencies while trying to show how technology can help humans instead of replace them. It remains to be seen how a new deluge of AI tools, investment, and lofty plans will actually affect the way banks work long-term on projects internally and assist clients across investment banking, asset management, and consumer accounts.

"Wells Fargo is preparing for major changes with AI in the next few years," the bank said on its website last May. "Our engineers are building the foundational platforms and key components that will allow us to accelerate the deployment and use of AI in a safe and sustainable way."

For better or worse, even beyond banks and money managers, AI is shaping production processes, jobs, and outlooks across industries as varied as healthcare, oil and gas, and the news media.

Barron's reviewed a transcript of Santomassimo's comments from the market intelligence provider AlphaSense, which uses AI, within minutes after he finished speaking. The transcript had green and red underlining to draw attention to portions of his remarks that appeared to convey, respectively, positive or negative sentiment.

Write to Rebecca Ungarino at rebecca.ungarino@barrons.com

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February 11, 2025 13:30 ET (18:30 GMT)

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