Wells Fargo

How they deploy

Deployment model

Wells Fargo runs AI as an enterprise program owned by Head of AI Saul Van Beurden, with technology delivered by Head of Technology Bridget Engle's organization and business leaders responsible for transforming their own operations. Van Beurden's team includes Faraz Shafiq, head of AI products and solutions since Feb 2026, and Cayetano Gea-Carrasco, head of AI and data for Consumer Banking and Lending from Oct 2026; Wealth & Investment Management has its own head of AI, Andre Mansour, who reports to the business's chief product officer, Eve Varner. Swarup Pogalur, head of digital and AI capabilities engineering, said in May 2026 that Wells Fargo built horizontal AI platforms with controls, monitoring and human oversight that teams across the bank share.

Model providers

Wells Fargo uses models from several providers rather than one. Microsoft supplies Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot to the workforce (Mar 2026), and Charlie Scharf sits on Microsoft's board. Google Cloud supplies Gemini behind Fargo (Gemini Flash 2.0 in Apr 2025) and Agentspace, which Wells Fargo adopted early under an expanded Google Cloud relationship announced in Aug 2025. CIO Chintan Mehta said in Apr 2025 that OpenAI models are used as needed and smaller Meta Llama models run internally. Faraz Shafiq said in Oct 2026 that a small language model built by Wells Fargo's model risk management team beats off-the-shelf models at debit card fraud detection. Wells Fargo's internal platform gives staff access to multiple large language models, but the bank has not published which ones it carries today.

Data and infrastructure

Wells Fargo chose Microsoft Azure as its primary public cloud and Google Cloud for advanced workloads, including complex AI and data solutions, in a Sep 2021 strategy that also moved its own hosting into third-party-owned data centers with private cloud, with a long-term goal of running mostly on public cloud. The 2026 proxy says Wells Fargo completed its new data centers in 2025, and the 2026 investment plan continues the migration into them and onto public and private cloud while investing in data platforms to make better use of AI. Chintan Mehta said in Apr 2025 that Wells Fargo uses Google and Microsoft cloud services and also runs its own data centers, and that Fargo transcribes speech locally and removes personal data with a small language model before any call to Gemini.

Leadership

AI, data and platform leaders

AI org map

Head of AI on the Operating Committee with a small central hub, generative AI leads in each business line, platforms in Technology

Wells Fargo named Saul Van Beurden to lead AI across the company in Nov 2025 while he was co-CEO of Consumer Banking and Lending, and on Oct 22, 2026 made AI his only job, with Kleber Santos taking full charge of the consumer business. Van Beurden reports to Charlie Scharf, sits on the Operating Committee and works closely with Head of Technology Bridget Engle, who also reports to Scharf; business leaders are responsible for transforming their own operations, with AI and data heads in the businesses.

Wells Fargo has not published how many AI, machine learning or data science staff it employs. Wells Fargo's AI work sits in three places: the small central hub under Head of AI Saul Van Beurden, which includes AI products and solutions under Faraz Shafiq; Bridget Engle's technology organization, which builds and runs the shared AI platforms; and generative AI leads and AI heads inside the businesses, such as Cayetano Gea-Carrasco in Consumer Banking and Lending and Andre Mansour in Wealth & Investment Management. Jasmine de Gaia, head of AI and enterprise data assets, is leaving to become Scotiabank's chief AI officer in Jan 2027, Banking Dive reported in Oct 2026. Wells Fargo had trained more than 90,000 employees on AI by Nov 2025, and more than 4,000 had taken part in Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI corporate program by Sep 2026.

Use cases

Wells Fargo has not published a count of its AI use cases in production. Charlie Scharf's Mar 2026 letter and Oct 2026 earnings call name the Fargo customer assistant, coding agents, call center and help desk agents, commercial underwriting documents, branch capacity, marketing campaigns, cyber vulnerability fixes and risk processes, and Scharf wrote that many more are in development. Wells Fargo has reported a return credited to AI for one use case, software engineering, where engineers using generative AI wrote 35% more code and the bank used the gain to do more work rather than reduce resources (Mar 2026). Wells Fargo has published no firm-level dollar figure for AI.

Adoption

Wells Fargo spread AI in layers: models in risk and marketing analytics and relationship management systems for years, Fargo for customers from 2023, Microsoft Copilot tools and an internal multi-model platform for employees in 2025, and agents from 2025 into 2026. AI tools reached more than 180,000 Wells Fargo desktops by Nov 2025, when more than 90,000 employees had been trained; Charlie Scharf wrote in Mar 2026 that about 190,000 employees had Copilot Chat access, about 40,000 used Microsoft 365 Copilot and about 25,000 used the internal platform. Wells Fargo does not require staff to use AI and benchmarks its daily, weekly and monthly usage against eight other large banks, but declined to share the figures with Business Insider (Mar 2026). Customer use of Fargo grew from 21.3 million interactions in 2023 to 245.4 million in 2024 and nearly 600 million in 2025.

By the numbers

Economics & controls

Recent signals

1. Oct 22, 2026

   Wells Fargo made Kleber Santos sole CEO of Consumer Banking and Lending and moved Saul Van Beurden to lead AI full time and deepen its work with AI companies, with both reporting to Charlie Scharf.

   Wells Fargo

2. Oct 20, 2026

   Faraz Shafiq said at Money20/20 that banker intelligence tools are boosting product sales rates by 40%, without defining the rate, and that an in-house small language model beats off-the-shelf models at debit card fraud detection.

   Banking Dive

3. Oct 15, 2026

   Wells Fargo hired Cayetano Gea-Carrasco from BBVA as head of AI and data for Consumer Banking and Lending, reporting to Saul Van Beurden.

   Wells Fargo

4. Oct 13, 2026

   Charlie Scharf said on the Q3 2026 call that Wells Fargo uses autonomous coding agents and AI to fix unknown cyber vulnerabilities, ranks fifth globally in the Evident AI Index, and cut headcount 8% in a year.

   Q3 2026 earnings call transcript

5. Oct 2026

   Jasmine de Gaia, Wells Fargo's head of AI and enterprise data assets, is leaving to become Scotiabank's chief AI officer on Jan 4, 2027, Banking Dive reported, citing the Financial Post.

   Banking Dive

6. Sep 29, 2026

   Wells Fargo said it is deploying agents for payment repairs and supporting payment operators, alongside AI fraud detection tools.

   Wells Fargo Stories

7. Sep 22, 2026

   Chintan Mehta set out Wells Fargo's responsible AI practice, and Wells Fargo said more than 4,000 employees had taken part in Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI program.

   Wells Fargo Stories

8. Jul 15, 2026

   Wells Fargo launched AI Teammate inside Advisor Gateway for advisors across all Wealth & Investment Management channels.

   Wells Fargo

9. Jul 14, 2026

   Wells Fargo reported its 24th straight quarterly headcount decline, to about 197,000, and Mike Santomassimo said technology and AI help the bank run with fewer people.

   Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

10. May 29, 2026

    Wells Fargo described Intelligent Banker Book, an AI customer view for bankers, and Saul Van Beurden said the AI strategy aims to make bankers more productive and remove manual work.

    Wells Fargo Stories

11. Mar 26, 2026

    Fargo passed 1 billion customer interactions less than three years after launch, with more than 3 million Spanish-speaking customers using it.

    Wells Fargo

12. Mar 16, 2026

    Charlie Scharf's shareholder letter reported about 190,000 employees with Copilot Chat access, 25,000 internal platform users, agents in call centers and commercial underwriting, and 35% more code from engineers using generative AI.

    2025 Annual Report

13. Mar 9, 2026

    Saul Van Beurden described a hub-and-spoke AI model, with a small central team and a generative AI lead in each business line, and said Wells Fargo does not mandate AI use.

    Business Insider

14. Jan 26, 2026

    Wells Fargo named Faraz Shafiq, who had worked at Amazon Web Services and Google, Head of AI Products and Solutions from Feb 9, 2026.

    Wells Fargo

15. Dec 9, 2025

    Charlie Scharf said Wells Fargo expects fewer employees in 2026, will roll out AI gradually, and that generative AI made its engineers 30% to 35% more efficient at writing code.

    Reuters

Quick answers

How does Wells Fargo deploy AI?

Wells Fargo deploys AI through Microsoft Copilot tools open to about 190,000 employees, an internal platform that gives about 25,000 staff access to multiple models, and Fargo, a customer assistant that passed 1 billion interactions in Mar 2026. Saul Van Beurden, Head of AI on the Operating Committee, gave up his co-CEO role in Consumer Banking and Lending in Oct 2026 to lead AI full time, working with Head of Technology Bridget Engle.

What does Wells Fargo use AI for?

Wells Fargo has not published a count of its AI use cases in production. Charlie Scharf's Mar 2026 letter and Oct 2026 earnings call name the Fargo customer assistant, coding agents, call center and help desk agents, commercial underwriting documents, branch capacity, marketing campaigns, cyber vulnerability fixes and risk processes, and Scharf wrote that many more are in development. Wells Fargo has reported a return credited to AI for one use case, software engineering, where engineers using generative AI wrote 35% more code and the bank used the gain to do more work rather than reduce resources (Mar 2026). Wells Fargo has published no firm-level dollar figure for AI.

Who leads AI at Wells Fargo?

AI at Wells Fargo is led by Saul Van Beurden (Senior EVP, Head of Artificial Intelligence); Bridget Engle (Senior EVP, Head of Technology); Faraz Shafiq (Head of AI Products and Solutions). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Saul Van Beurden, Head of AI, on the Operating Committee, reporting to the CEO.

What AI platform does Wells Fargo use?

Wells Fargo built an internal platform that gives employees access to tools and models from several providers in a controlled environment, with about 25,000 users in Mar 2026, and bought Microsoft Copilot tools for the wider workforce.

Which AI models does Wells Fargo use?

Wells Fargo calls its approach poly-model and poly-cloud: Fargo ran on Google's Gemini Flash 2.0 in Apr 2025, staff use Microsoft Copilot, and CIO Chintan Mehta said OpenAI models are used as needed and smaller Meta Llama models run internally.

How many Wells Fargo employees use AI?

About 190,000 Wells Fargo employees had access to Microsoft Copilot Chat and about 40,000 used Microsoft 365 Copilot (Mar 2026); Fargo passed 1 billion customer interactions in Mar 2026.

How far has AI spread at Wells Fargo?

Wells Fargo has reported one business return it credits to AI, which places it in Piloting: Charlie Scharf wrote in Mar 2026 that engineers using generative AI wrote 35% more code with shorter cycle times, and that the bank used the gain to do more work rather than reduce resources. Wells Fargo has also officially reported a company-wide rollout: Scharf's Mar 2026 letter counted about 190,000 employees with Copilot Chat access, about 40,000 using Microsoft 365 Copilot and about 25,000 using the internal multi-model platform, and Head of AI Saul Van Beurden owns the program from the Operating Committee. Wells Fargo falls short of Scaling because its one return sits in software engineering alone: Faraz Shafiq's Oct 2026 remark that banker intelligence tools are boosting product sales rates by 40% defines no rate and gives no sales figure, the 2026 proxy says AI workflows on public cloud reduce check processing costs without a figure, and the bank credits no firm-level figure to AI, including its 8% headcount decline in the year to Sep 2026.

Open questions

• How many AI use cases does Wells Fargo run in production, and how many are still pilots?
• What does Wells Fargo spend on AI each year, including Microsoft Copilot licenses and model usage?
• How much of Wells Fargo's 8% headcount decline in the year to Sep 2026, and of its planned efficiency savings, comes from AI?
• What business return do deployed tools without published figures deliver, such as Fargo, the banker intelligence tools, the call center agents, commercial underwriting agents and AI Teammate?
• What does the 40% rise in product sales rates that Faraz Shafiq credited to banker intelligence tools measure, against what baseline and over what period, and what sales or revenue does it represent?
• How much has AI cut Wells Fargo's check processing costs, which the 2026 proxy says fell without giving a figure?
• How many Wells Fargo employees use Copilot Chat or the internal platform each week, as opposed to having access, given that the bank benchmarks its usage against eight peers but has not published it?
• Which models does Wells Fargo's internal platform carry today, and does it use Anthropic's Claude, which Chintan Mehta named in Apr 2025 as strong for coding?
• How many employees use Google Agentspace, now part of Gemini Enterprise, beyond the roughly 2,000 with Deep Research and NotebookLM in Nov 2025?
• How do Saul Van Beurden's AI team and Bridget Engle's technology organization divide responsibility, where do the CIO and Chief Data Officer report, and who replaces Jasmine de Gaia?
• How many people work in AI, machine learning and data science roles at Wells Fargo?

Sources