Banks are upping hiring efforts in the age of AI

American Banker's 2026 AI Talent Shift Survey

What roles are being added to departments alongside AI adoption?

Key takeaway: By and large, most divisions saw an uptick in sales, software engineering and AI engineering roles being added.

The conversation around AI's impact on the workforce at large generally centers around layoff worries and promises of efficiency. But how is it influencing new positions being created?

In corporate and commercial departments, the top three roles being added were bankers/relationship managers (37%), sales positions (33%) and software engineers (26%).

For wealth management and investment banking divisions, popular roles included software engineers (35%), sales and client-facing positions (35%) and AI engineers or AI-related roles (29%). Retail and small business banking divisions saw a similar breakdown with sales (31%), IT (24%) and AI engineers (21%) as the top roles being added.

Payments divisions are seeing a rise in software engineers (35%), sales roles (25%), AI engineers (20%) and operations processing support (20%).

Risk and compliance understandably has seen the largest rise in the number of risk and compliance positions (33%), followed by cybersecurity and fraud prevention roles (28%) and IT experts (17%).

With the rise of AI adoption across the banking space, institutions have responded to create tailored roles like chief AI officers that when filled with the right expertise, could guide an organization through tech integration efforts.

Jim Mortensen, strategic advisor at Datos Insights, told American Banker that as models like ChatGPT and other tools continue to gather "very high level[s] of visibility," banks have signalled their intentions to seriously pursue adoption.

"It's for that level of cachet that they feel like they have to have somebody looking at it, because they're going to be asked about it and genuinely they want to know how to fully exploit the technology for their benefit," Mortensen said.

Which organizations are approaching a hiring spree?

Key takeaway: A third of big banks are forecasting layoffs ahead, while credit unions appear to be approaching a hiring frenzy.

National bankers (35%) had the smallest overall share of respondents who said they planned to increase headcount over the next 12 months. Roughly 33% said they planned to reduce headcount across the same period of time, while 24% aren't forecasting any headcount changes whatsoever.

More than half of midsize banks (52%) plan to increase their headcount in the coming year, versus 30% who are expecting layoffs and 16% that said headcount will remain unchanged.

Community banks (52%) had a similar share of respondents who plan to hire more staff in the coming months, while only 6% said layoffs are coming and 39% said headcount will stay the same.

Credit unions (63%) had the largest share of respondents who plan to increase hiring efforts for the next 12 months, while 10% plan to make headcount reductions and 23% will leave staffing numbers unchanged.

The findings are optimistic in the wake of February's figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reported that the economy lost 92,000 jobs that month. The figure has since recovered in March, which recorded the addition of 178,000 new hires.

Layoff worries have been stoked recently by Block's wave of layoffs in March, wherein CEO Jack Dorsey cut 40% of its staff due to AI and made bleak forecasts that his company is only the first to do so.

"Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes," Block CEO Jack Dorsey wrote in the company's fourth-quarter shareholder letter.

Departmental staffing plans for the coming year

Key takeaway: Payments is the department most likely to see headcount boosts, while risk and compliance is looking at moderate layoffs.

Among respondents in all department categories surveyed, more than one-third said staffing would increase over the next 12 months, while a lesser but equally notable share of experts said layoffs were on the horizon. 

Broken down by department, layoff predictions were 26% for payments, 29% for retail/small business banking, 31% for corporate, 36% for risk and compliance and 27% for wealth management or investment banking.

The growing popularity of agentic payments, where AI models can initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers with little to no supervision required, has led banks to onboard specialized talent that can identify opportunities for their institution.

Elsewhere, AI agents have been used for a variety of tasks ranging from customer support to cybersecurity defense.

DailyPay, an earned wage access provider that processes $30 billion a year, uses agentic AI to assist with anti-money laundering processes. The caveat with these tools is that high-quality data and adequate human oversight is needed to achieve the best outputs.

"You use agentic AI to provide a summary," Gregory Schipilliti Cid, New York-based DailyPay's director of international, told American Banker. "You're going to have it be an additional analyst and a digital trust and safety consultant or an auditor."

How are AI spenders adjusting their staffing levels?

Key takeaway: Organizations investing in AI are seeking to hire employees more than they are to fire them, according to the survey.

Layoffs are on the horizon for banks, but a greater proportion of banks are hiring.

Close to half (47%) of institutions that increased AI spending over the past 12 months plan to increase their headcount in the months to come, against 26% who plan to decrease staffing levels and 21% who will keep headcount steady.

Among those who moderately increased AI spending between 10% and 24%, 53% are expecting notable increases in headcount over the coming 12 months. About 22% are predicting headcount to shrink and 21% expect it to remain the same.

Institutions that only slightly increased AI spending, by less than 10%, are the cohort with the largest share of respondents (54%) who are predicting staffing increases in the coming 12 months. Only 14% said layoffs are planned in the next 12 months and 30% say staffing levels will remain unchanged.

Roughly one-third (34%) of those who haven't changed AI spending are planning to increase their headcount over the coming months, while 25% are planning to thin out staffing levels and 42% will stay the course.

Despite popular worries that AI is the top driver of layoffs across Wall Street and the rest of financial services, some experts feel that the technology's impact won't be as strong as it may seem.

Scott Weller, cofounder and chief technology officer for EnFi, told American Banker that AI "isn't displacing jobs," but rather "reshaping them."

"The driving forces behind workforce reductions remain the same as they always have: market cycles, economic headwinds and strategic realignments," Weller said. "Wall Street firms aren't slashing jobs because AI has suddenly rendered analysts and traders obsolete. They're tightening belts in response to rising interest rates, lower deal flow and shifting financial priorities."