Nuno Matos, CEO of ANZ Group Holdings, one of Australia's largest banks, warned that the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence could pose risks to both the business sector and the labour market, and that the possibility of AI leading to large-scale job cuts in banking cannot be ruled out. Speaking at the Australian Financial Review Asia Summit in Sydney, Matos said the risks from AI are escalating faster than even the technology's creators and developers had anticipated, citing recent warnings from Elon Musk, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Asked about the likelihood that AI would force ANZ into major staff reductions, Matos did not rule out the possibility, saying no one yet knows for certain how the technology will affect headcount. ANZ currently employs around 40,000 people. The warning, however, is not an announcement of a new round of AI-driven layoffs by ANZ. The bank previously announced roughly 3,500 job cuts in 2025 under a restructuring plan aimed at reducing duplication and lowering costs, which came before Matos's latest AI warning. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley estimates that European banks could cut as much as around 20% of their staff in some cases through AI adoption, and major banks such as Bank of America, Citi, and Wells Fargo have all signalled that they will rein in or reduce headcount while increasing investment in technology.
Citigroup Inc.CEO Matos warns AI adoption could risk large-scale banking job cuts, but no new layoffs are announced; prior 3,500 cuts were a separate restructuring.
