The Bar Has Been Raised After Jane Fraser’s Message to Citigroup

Jane Fraser wasted no time with pleasantries in her message to Citigroup's 200,000 employees this week. "We are not graded on effort. We are judged on our results." The memo, which Fraser titled "The Bar is Raised," arrived as the bank announced it would cut approximately 1,000 positions this week. This is part of a sweeping restructuring that could eliminate as much as 20,000 roles by 2026.

The most significant part of Fraser's internal declaration is the timing and directness. Citigroup isn't cutting costs because it's struggling. The bank reported full-year 2025 revenue of $85.2 billion, up 6 percent from $80.7 billion in 2024, with net income of $14.3 billion, a 13 percent increase from $12.7 billion the prior year.

All five business segments posted quarterly records in the fourth quarter. The stock surged 67 percent in 2025 and Fraser herself was named Euromoney's Banker of the Year and elected Chair of the Citigroup Board. By any conventional measure, Citi is winning. Yet Fraser is making clear that winning isn't sufficient. The bar must rise.​

Citigroup has been executing its transformation strategy since early 2024, when Fraser first outlined plans to strip away layers of management, consolidate business units, and upgrade technology infrastructure that had become a competitive liability. The initiative was projected to deliver approximately $2.5 billion in annual cost savings.

More than 80 percent of that transformation work is now complete, and the results are becoming operational reality rather than strategic projection. Investment banking and advisory fees posted double-digit growth in 2025, showing that Citi is simultaneously streamlining costs and expanding revenue-generating capacity.​

In her memo, Fraser explicitly connected the next phase of restructuring to the bank's broader competitive imperative. She called for employees to adopt a "more commercial mindset," telling staff to "ask for the business, competing for the full wallet, and not settling for a secondary role or missed opportunity."

This language, while standard in banking, carries specific weight when accompanied by imminent job cuts. The message to the organization is unambiguous. The bank will reward revenue-focused, highly productive roles and trim positions deemed less essential to generating income. For support functions, compliance roles, and middle-management positions without direct revenue responsibility, that signals elevated risk.​

AI as an Operational Reality

The connection between accelerating job cuts and AI deployment is direct and acknowledged. Mark Mason, Citigroup's outgoing chief financial officer, explicitly told reporters he expects "headcount to continue to trend down" as the bank "continues to improve productivity and tools like AI." By mid-2024, Citi had given roughly 180,000 of its employees access to internal AI platforms, and those tools are now operational and deepening their integration into core workflows.

AI tools freed up 100,000 hours of weekly software development capacity, a productivity multiplier that, when extended across trading desks, client service teams, and back-office operations, translates directly into headcount reduction. Fraser made this explicit in the memo itself. "Over time, we can expect automation, AI and further process simplification to reshape how work gets done, some roles will change, new ones will emerge and others will no longer be required."

Citigroup's 2025 earnings showed growth across multiple dimensions. Investment banking revenues increased 22 percent year-over-year, with advisory fees specifically surging 53 percent, reflecting the bank's continued success in capturing major transactions across multiple sectors. Services revenues grew 8 percent, driven by treasury solutions and securities services.

Wealth management delivered strong results with client investment assets up 14 percent. U.S. Personal Banking posted remarkable performance, with net income up 124 percent compared to the prior year, driven by improved credit performance and higher deposit spreads.​

Yet Citi isn't expanding headcount to capture these gains. Instead, it's deploying technology and AI-driven automation to handle higher volumes with fewer people. A software developer assisted by AI tools can do the work of three developers without assistance and so on. These are operational realities already playing out across Wall Street.

The Competitive Pressure

For rivals like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and others already investing heavily in AI infrastructure, Fraser's public commitment to this path creates pressure to accelerate similar programs.

When the CEO of Citigroup, one of Wall Street's most prominent financial services leaders, sends a memo to 200,000 employees stating that the bar has been raised and that organizational productivity and performance expectations must increase dramatically, it signals a competitive reset. The message echoes beyond Citi's walls.

The 1,000 positions being cut this week represent the visible manifestation of a broader structural shift. Citi has already eliminated more than 10,000 roles under Fraser's overhaul since early 2024. The path to another 10,000 cuts isn't through dramatic business contraction but through relentless productivity improvement, primarily enabled by AI and automation.

For a bank that has historically lagged competitors on efficiency metrics and return on tangible common equity, that realignment represents a fundamental competitive move.

Fraser has framed 2026 as the year a "more disciplined, more confident, winning Citi" must fully emerge. The strategy carries significant risk. The bank must now prove to investors that the combination of layoffs, technology spending, and cultural realignment can close Citi's long-standing performance gap with Wall Street rivals while maintaining employee morale and client service quality. For the remaining workforce, her message is clear. Adapt to AI-driven workflows for continued employment.