NatWest boss Paul Thwaite becomes latest bank chief to admit that some jobs in the
NatWest boss Paul Thwaite has become the latest banking chief to admit that artificial intelligence (AI) will take over some jobs in the sector.
Thwaite said he did not know whether the lender’s 60,000-strong workforce would shrink over the next decade but said it ‘is definitely going to change’.
The bank already employs increasing numbers of people in software and AI-related roles.
And Thwaite told a business summit hosted by The Times: ‘In effect there will be roles that currently exist that absolutely to all intents and purposes [will be] delivered by AI.’
The comments follow a series of warnings from other bank chiefs about the impact of new technology – most infamously in the case of Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters.
Last month, Winters had to apologise after he described staff facing the axe as ‘lower value human capital’ – as the bank announced 8,000 roles would be replaced with AI.
Natwest boss Paul Thwaite has said some banking jobs will be replaced by AI
Meanwhile, HSBC boss Georges Elhedery has said that AI ‘will destroy certain jobs and create new jobs’.
And John Waldron, chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, recently described the bank’s back-office jobs as ‘a human assembly line’ that will ‘become more digitised’.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley predict that more than 200,000 banking jobs across Europe are under threat from AI in the next five years.
However, Sam Altman – boss of ChatGPT maker OpenAI – has rowed back on the pessimism.
He backtracked last month on his previous warnings about AI, saying he does not believe it will lead to a global ‘jobs apocalypse’.
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