Barclays slashes 5,000 workforce roles in aggressive push toward AI automation: Report

Barclays has announced plans to cut roughly 5,000 jobs—amounting to approximately 5% of its global workforce—as the British banking giant accelerates its adoption of artificial intelligence and automated technologies to trim fixed costs.

The head-count reduction was outlined alongside the bank's third-quarter earnings statement, where leadership framed the decision as a "technology-enabled" effort aimed at "organisational simplification and technology change efficiency driven by AI", according to BBC report.

Chief Financial Officer Anna Cross said that 1,000 of the planned cuts have already taken effect, with the remaining 4,000 expected to be completed by the end of the fourth quarter, the report added. Roughly 60% of the overall reductions are set to impact back-office and support functions, including software developers and junior banking support staff whose routine responsibilities are being streamlined through technological tools.

Chief Executive Officer CS Venkatakrishnan characterised the structural changes as part of a broader shift in how modern financial institutions operate, noting the role artificial intelligence plays in optimising lower-level workflows, as per the BBC report.

The job cuts coincided with a mixed third-quarter performance for the bank. While Barclays saw gains on its equities trading desks, its fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) trading revenue dropped 19% year-over-year to 1.01 billion euros ($1.4 billion), trailing analyst projections due to reduced client activity and challenging macroeconomic conditions.

Barclays' move reflects a wider trend across Wall Street and global financial hubs, where firms are increasingly turning to generative AI and advanced automation to lower overhead and reallocate resources toward core revenue-generating operations.