Google-first agents on a cloud-agnostic platform, run by a newly named head of AI, with headcount managed down through attrition.
How is Wells Fargo using AI?
Wells Fargo's AI strategy is defined by three choices made since 2021: a deep relationship with Google Cloud (alongside Microsoft Azure) that powers both the Fargo consumer assistant and the enterprise agent rollout; an AI platform its payments chief describes as model- and cloud-agnostic so newer models can be swapped in; and, since November 2025, a single accountable executive — Saul Van Beurden, named head of AI while co-running consumer banking. Freed from the Federal Reserve's asset cap in 2025, the bank pairs that build-out with an explicit efficiency agenda: CEO Charlie Scharf says engineers are 30–35% more efficient writing code with AI and that the workforce, already down from 275,000 to about 210,000 since 2019, will keep shrinking, mostly through attrition.
Lead bank
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
Assets (lead bank, Mar 31, 2026)
$1.85 trillion
Charter
National bank (OCC)
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA
Flagship platform
Fargo and the Google Cloud agent stack
AI leadership
Saul Van Beurden · Tracy Kerrins · Faraz Shafiq · Ather Williams III · Bridget Engle · Chintan Mehta · Michelle Moore · Ken Meyer · Evelyn Varner · Annie Cheslin
- Fargo: full rollout in 2023 with Spanish-language capability; 21.3 million interactions in 2023, 245 million in 2024, with a privacy-first pipeline that keeps personal data away from the LLM.
- August 2025: generative and agentic AI to all 215,000 employees via Google Cloud's Agentspace, Gemini Deep Research and NotebookLM — one of the first enterprise-wide agent rollouts at a large bank.
- November 2025: Saul Van Beurden named head of AI; Kleber Santos and Van Beurden become co-CEOs of a combined consumer banking and lending unit. January 2026: Faraz Shafiq hired from AWS to run adoption of AI products.
- Consumer CIO and head of generative AI Tracy Kerrins manages a $4 billion budget and about 7,000 people; the AI platform is designed to be model- and cloud-agnostic.
- Most active US bank investor in AI companies: 81 venture deals since 2019, per Evident.
- Efficiency is stated plainly: 30–35% coding efficiency gain, $612 million of severance in Q4 2025, headcount expected to fall further.
- March 2026: Fargo passes 1 billion customer interactions in under three years; more than 3 million Spanish-speaking customers have used it. July 2026: AI Teammate, a generative-AI chat tool, for wealth advisers inside the new Advisor Gateway desktop.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot alongside Google: more than 30,000 employees since June 2025, 92% active usage. August 2026: a Gold member of the Agentic AI Foundation, home of MCP.
- Headcount 197,000 at mid-2026 after 24 straight quarterly declines; in August 2026 Scharf said automating roles will mean 'tens of thousands of fewer positions'. Open AI roles include an AI solutions director, principal AI engineers and an agentic identity security lead (listed below, as of 24 September 2026).
What is Fargo and the Google Cloud agent stack?
Fargo, the consumer virtual assistant built on Google's conversational AI, went to 21.3 million interactions in 2023 and 245 million in 2024 without customer data reaching a large language model; in August 2025 the bank began rolling Google Cloud's Agentspace, Gemini Deep Research and NotebookLM to all 215,000 employees.[1][5][6]
What has Wells Fargo done on AI, and when?
- Oct 1, 2026
Securities trader on AI and liquidity[36]
Managing director Annie Cheslin says the municipal-bond desk uses AI tools to be a better liquidity provider and tighten bid-ask spreads, and expects it to become a bigger tool for data management.
- Sep 29, 2026
Ranks 53rd in Fortune's AIQ 75[35]
Fortune and ServiceNow's expanded 2026 AI-impact ranking of Fortune 500 companies places Wells Fargo 53rd, behind fellow US banks JPMorgan Chase (1st), BNY (15th), Bank of America (19th) and Citigroup (51st).
- Sep 18, 2026
Ranks second-worst of seven banks on AI-judged reputation[34]
A RepTrak study averaging scores across Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini gives Wells Fargo 22.2 out of 100, ahead of only TD Bank (19.4) and well behind Ally (52.1), Chase (50.3), Truist (42.6), Bank of America (39.6) and Chime (37.3).
- Aug 12, 2026
Joins the Agentic AI Foundation as a Gold member[31]
The neutral home of MCP and other agent standards; CIO Chintan Mehta cites interoperability and governance.
- Aug 4, 2026
- Aug 3, 2026
BioCatch customer as Visa buys the vendor[33]
Covering Visa's $2.4 billion deal for BioCatch, American Banker reported that Wells Fargo signed on with the behavioural-biometrics fraud vendor in 2025 (per a January BioCatch release), making it one of three of the four largest US banks running BioCatch software.
- Jul 15, 2026
AI Teammate for wealth advisers[27]
Plain-language chat over the Advisor Gateway platform; users created thousands of prompts soon after launch, per chief product officer Evelyn Varner.
- Jul 14, 2026
Q2 2026 call: Advisor Gateway with generative AI; headcount 197,000[28]
More than $1 billion spent modernising the wealth platform; headcount down 79,000 in six years; CFO sees more automation ahead.
- May 5, 2026
Payments AI platform is model- and cloud-agnostic[10]
Ather Williams at American Banker's Payments Forum.
- Apr 29, 2026
Wall Street expansion post asset cap[18]
Freed from the Fed cap in 2025, the bank invests in trading and crosses $2 trillion of assets.
- Apr 20, 2026
Most active US bank AI venture investor[12]
81 AI venture deals since 2019.
- Apr 14, 2026
- Mar 26, 2026
- Feb 24, 2026
2025 10-K spells out AI model risk[21]
AI informs or automates business decisions, risk management and models; biased or inaccurate data and limited transparency named as risks.
- Jan 26, 2026
AWS executive hired to expand AI use[14]
Faraz Shafiq to study company-wide needs for generative and agentic AI and manage those products.
- Jan 14, 2026
Q4 2025 call: 'especially with AI'[20]
Scharf says the bank has more tools to get more efficient than ever, and will weigh how much of the savings to reinvest in growth.
- Jan 14, 2026
$612 million severance in Q4 2025[17]
Streamlining under Scharf; the stock falls 4.6% on the miss.
- Dec 9, 2025
- Nov 20, 2025
- Nov 5, 2025
Scharf: headcount will keep falling[15]
From 275,000 in 2019 to a little over 210,000; further declines 'through attrition as possible'.
- Oct 14, 2025
Q3 2025 call: efficiency through automation and AI[19]
Scharf points to headcount, third-party spend and real estate; the focus is on automating processes and leveraging AI.
- Aug 5, 2025
Agentic AI to all 215,000 employees[6]
Google Cloud Agentspace, Gemini Deep Research and NotebookLM; Kerrins: 'a big deal for us'.
- Jun 1, 2025
Microsoft 365 Copilot rolled out to employees[32]
More than 30,000 users and a 92% active usage rate among enabled employees by November 2025, per CIO for Enterprise Functions Ken Meyer.
- Dec 31, 2024
245 million Fargo interactions in 2024[5]
336 million since launch; speech transcribed locally, no personal data sent to the LLM.
- Dec 31, 2023
Fargo fully rolled out: 21.3 million interactions[1]
Includes a Spanish-language capability, per the 4Q23 results.
- Jan 1, 2022
- Jan 1, 2021
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure chosen as cloud partners[6]
The relationship that later carries Fargo and the agent rollout.
Where does Wells Fargo use AI today?
| System | What it does | Status | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fargo[5] | Consumer virtual assistant: bill pay, transfers, transaction lookups; 245 million interactions in 2024. | In production | Customer-facing chatbots |
| Agentspace agents for employees[6][9] | Agents to summarise complex FX inquiries and navigate compliance policies; research tools for all staff. | Rolling out | Generative & agentic AI |
| AI coding assistants[13] | 30–35% efficiency gain for engineers. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Payments fraud defence[11][3] | AI on payment flows of more than $1 trillion a day; guidance to corporate clients on generative-AI fraud. | In production | Fraud detection |
| Integrated receivables[4] | Automation and AI match electronic payments to remittance data for commercial clients. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot[32] | More than 30,000 employees since June 2025; 92% active usage among enabled staff, used for content, summaries and research. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Advisor Gateway and AI Teammate[27][28] | Generative-AI desktop for financial advisers; AI Teammate answers product, workflow and process questions in plain language. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| AI risk-factor disclosure[21] | The 10-K says AI helps inform or automate decisions, risk management and models, and names biased outputs and model opacity as risks. | In production | Model risk management |
| Behavioural biometrics (BioCatch)[33] | BioCatch software that reads signals such as keystrokes, touch gestures and phone orientation to catch account takeovers, scams, money mules and fake account applications; Wells Fargo signed on in 2025, according to American Banker. Wells Fargo has not described the deployment. | In production | Fraud detection |
Use-case links open the tracker's rules-by-use-case matrix: which documents govern each system type.
Treasury tools compared across banks: AI in bank treasury management.
Which AI vendors and fintechs does Wells Fargo work with?
| Company | What Wells Fargo uses it for | Status | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| BioCatch | BioCatch behavioral and device fraud-detection software; named by BioCatch as a new customer in 2025, and by American Banker as one of three of the four largest US banks running BioCatch software. | In production | Fraud detection |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft 365 Copilot since June 2025; more than 30,000 employees using it and a 92% active usage rate among enabled employees, per Microsoft. | In production | Enterprise AI assistants |
| Gemini Enterprise (Google Cloud) | Google Cloud's Agentspace, Gemini Deep Research and NotebookLM being rolled out to all 215,000 employees, with agents the bank builds in Agentspace. | Rolling out | Enterprise AI assistants |
Each vendor and fintech page cites the source for the relationship, and vendor pages list products, pricing and other bank customers. Compare AI tools for banks by category, or read the fintech and neobank AI dossiers.
What has Wells Fargo disclosed in numbers?
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Fargo interactions | 245 million (2024); 336 million since launch[5] | Apr 8, 2025 |
| Employees in the agent rollout | 215,000[6] | Aug 5, 2025 |
| Consumer technology / gen-AI budget | $4 billion (Kerrins' organisation)[7] | Sep 24, 2025 |
| Coding efficiency gain | 30–35%[13] | Dec 9, 2025 |
| Headcount | ≈ 210,000, from 275,000 in 2019[15] | Nov 5, 2025 |
| AI venture deals since 2019 | 81 (most of any US bank)[12] | Apr 20, 2026 |
| Fargo interactions since launch | > 1 billion (in under three years)[23] | Mar 26, 2026 |
| Spanish-speaking Fargo users | > 3 million customers; > 160 million interactions[23] | Mar 26, 2026 |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot users | > 30,000; 92% active usage[32] | Nov 20, 2025 |
| Headcount, Q2 2026 | 197,000 (24 consecutive quarterly declines)[28] | Jun 30, 2026 |
“It's likely we'll have less headcount as we look forward … we'd like to do much of it through attrition as possible.”[15]
Charlie Scharf · CEO · Nov 5, 2025
“Our goal overall is to get generative AI tools in the hands of all of our employees.”[6]
Tracy Kerrins · Head of Enterprise Generative AI · Aug 5, 2025
“We think we have more tools on a going-forward basis to get more efficient than we've ever had and especially with AI.”[20]
Charlie Scharf · CEO · Jan 14, 2026
“When we think about the ability to automate roles... it's going to result in tens of thousands of fewer positions.”[30]
Charlie Scharf · CEO · Aug 4, 2026
“It reflects our disciplined approach to responsibly scaling AI and delivering experiences that make banking easier, smarter, and more personal.”[23]
Michelle Moore · Head of Digital, Data and Artificial Intelligence · Mar 26, 2026
“We believe open collaboration and interoperability are essential to unlocking the technology's potential while maintaining strong governance, transparency, and accountability.”[31]
Chintan Mehta · CIO and Head of Digital Technology & Innovation · Aug 12, 2026
“We are definitely using AI tools to be a better liquidity provider for our customer to provide tighter bid-ask [spreads].”[36]
Annie Cheslin · Managing Director, High-Grade Municipal Trading, Wells Fargo Securities · Oct 1, 2026
Who runs AI at Wells Fargo?
Saul Van BeurdenLinkedIn ↗
Tracy KerrinsLinkedIn ↗
CIO, Consumer Technology; Head of Enterprise Generative AI[7]
Faraz ShafiqLinkedIn ↗
Ather Williams IIILinkedIn ↗
Head of Global Payments and Liquidity and Wholesale Digital[10]
Bridget EngleLinkedIn ↗
Senior EVP and Head of Technology[22]
Chintan MehtaLinkedIn ↗
CIO and Head of Digital Technology & Innovation[31]
Michelle MooreLinkedIn ↗
Head of Digital, Data & Artificial Intelligence, Consumer Banking and Lending[23][26]
Ken MeyerLinkedIn ↗
CIO, Enterprise Functions[32]
Evelyn VarnerLinkedIn ↗
Chief Product Officer, Wealth & Investment Management[27]
Annie Cheslin
Managing Director, High-Grade Municipal Trading, Wells Fargo Securities[36]
What AI roles is Wells Fargo hiring for?
12 open AI-related postings on Wells Fargo's careers site as of Sep 24, 2026. A snapshot of current openings, not a source: postings close.
Artificial Intelligence Solutions Director
Charlotte, NC · posted Sep 17, 2026
Senior Lead Artificial Intelligence Solutions Consultant
Charlotte, NC · posted Sep 17, 2026
Principal Engineer - Agentic Identity Security
Irving, TX (+2 more) · posted Sep 23, 2026
Principal Engineer - AI Engineering Productivity Lead
Charlotte, NC · posted Sep 23, 2026
Boston, MA · posted Sep 23, 2026
Principal Engineer (AI Engineering)
Columbus, OH · posted Sep 18, 2026
Principal Engineer, AI Engineering
City of London
Principal Engineer - Gen AI, LLM, RAG, Agentic AI
Bengaluru, India · posted Sep 8, 2026
City of London
Lead Software Engineer - AIOps/Gen AI
Bengaluru, India · posted Sep 21, 2026
Lead Software Engineer - Python/Gen AI/RAG
Hyderabad, India · posted Sep 22, 2026
Senior Business Execution Consultant - AI Risk Consultant
Bengaluru, India · posted Sep 2, 2026
Which regulators govern Wells Fargo's AI?
| Authority | Why it matters here | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| OCC | National bank; the revised model risk guidance and the interagency third-party guidance govern the Google Cloud dependency. | OCC Bulletin 2026-13 OCC Bulletin 2023-17 |
| Federal Reserve | The asset cap imposed in 2018 was lifted in 2025; SR 26-2 and SR 23-4 apply to vendor-supplied models. | SR 26-2 SR 23-4 |
| CFPB | Fargo is a consumer chatbot at scale; adverse-action duties apply to AI in consumer lending. | CFPB Chatbots in Consumer Finance (issue spotlight, 2023) ECOA / Regulation B adverse action (15 U.S.C. 1691(d); 12 CFR 1002.9) |
| Basel Committee | A single-vendor agent platform is the concentration risk the Basel third-party principles address. | BCBS Third-Party Risk Principles (Dec 2025) |
Side by side: SR 11-7 vs SR 26-2 · OCC vs CFPB on AI lending · PRA SS1/23 vs SR 26-2 · all comparisons.
What does the public record suggest about Wells Fargo's AI strategy?
Analysis by BankingNewsAI from the sources cited on this page. Observations, not advice.
01
Vendor concentration is the question examiners will ask
Fargo, the agent rollout and research tools all run on Google Cloud. The 'cloud-agnostic' platform language is the answer the bank has prepared; the exit plan behind it is what the third-party guidance requires.
02
The privacy architecture is a differentiator worth publicising
Keeping personal data out of the LLM is exactly the design regulators describe for chatbots; it is also why Fargo scaled to hundreds of millions of interactions without a headline incident.
03
One accountable executive for AI arrived late but decisively
Naming a head of AI who also runs consumer banking ties AI to the P&L rather than to the technology function — the structure supervisors say they want to see.
04
Efficiency is the stated strategy, not a side effect
The severance charges and the attrition guidance mean AI productivity will show up in expense ratios first; the growth story is the newly uncapped balance sheet, not AI.
- Wells Fargo’s Ohsung Kwon: 2027 will be a year of AI applications over AI buildout
- Wells Fargo’s CEO Says AI Will Erase Tens of Thousands of Jobs. Here’s Why He’s Still Not Worried About Your Wallet
- WealthStack Roundup: Wells Fargo Rolls Out AI Teammate for Advisors
- Wells Fargo debuts AI-powered teammate for financial advisers
- Wells Fargo Wealth Unit Drives Productivity Boom With New AI Suite
What is Fargo at Wells Fargo?
Fargo is Wells Fargo's AI virtual assistant, built on Google Cloud's conversational AI and fully rolled out in 2023. It handles bill payments, transfers, transaction lookups and account questions by voice or text, and recorded 245 million interactions in 2024 with a design that keeps customers' personal data away from the language model.
Who leads AI at Wells Fargo?
Saul Van Beurden was named head of AI in November 2025 while also becoming co-CEO of consumer banking and lending with Kleber Santos. Tracy Kerrins runs enterprise generative AI as consumer CIO, and Faraz Shafiq, hired from AWS in January 2026, oversees adoption of AI products.
- 4Q23 Financial Results
- Wells Fargo Names Saul Van Beurden to Lead Artificial Intelligence
- Helping you protect your payments as AI changes the fraud landscape
- How integrated receivables take the pain out of electronic payment posting
- Wells Fargo's AI assistant just crossed 245 million interactions – no human handoffs, no sensitive data exposed
- Wells Fargo plans to unleash Google's agentic AI bank-wide
- The Most Powerful Women to Watch, No. 6, Tracy Kerrins, Wells Fargo
- Wells Fargo taps head of consumer banking to lead on AI
- Wells Fargo hires AWS exec to lead AI strategy
- How Wells Fargo deploys AI in payments
- Ather Williams thinks unicorn fintechs have nothing on Wells Fargo's innovation
- Wells Fargo, Citi and Goldman lead in AI venture investment
- Wells Fargo CEO Sees AI Impacting Companies' Workforce Decisions
- Wells Fargo Taps Amazon Web Services Executive to Expand AI Use
- Wells Fargo CEO expects bank's workforce to shrink further
- Wells Fargo expects more job cuts, will roll out AI gradually in 2026
- Wells Fargo misses profit estimates on severance costs, shares fall
- Wells Fargo's Long-Anticipated Wall Street Expansion Is Here
- Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights
- Wells Fargo WFC Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
- Wells Fargo & Company 2025 Annual Report (Form 10-K, Exhibit 13): risk factors
- Wells Fargo & Company Form 10-K for 2025: information about our executive officers
- Wells Fargo Reaches Major Digital Milestones
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
- AI is starting to replace humans in operations, analyst jobs
- Michelle Calarco Moore, The Most Powerful Women in Banking
- Wells Fargo debuts AI-powered teammate for financial advisers
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
- Watch CNBC's full interview with Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf
- Wells Fargo's CEO Says AI Will Erase Tens of Thousands of Jobs
- Agentic AI Foundation Welcomes 57 New Members, Gaining Major Financial Services Players and APAC Leaders
- From legacy to Frontier: How 100-year brands are leading AI innovation
- What Visa's $2.4B BioCatch deal means for your bank
- People use AI to gauge banks' reputations, and its verdicts are harsh
- How bottom-line-focused financial firms are finding ROI in AI
- The Most Powerful Women in Banking NEXT, #21, Annie Cheslin, Wells Fargo Securities
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