Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf used the bank's Q3 2026 earnings call on October 14, 2026 to lay out how the firm is deploying AI internally and where it sees the clearest near-term opportunities — while also addressing analyst questions about whether AI agents could become a meaningful risk to deposit stability.
Scharf said Wells Fargo's AI focus was recently recognized in the Evident AI Index, which ranks banks across four pillars: talent, innovation, leadership, and transparency.
The bank ranked #5 globally and #3 in the United States. On internal deployment, Scharf described using AI to write code faster, to support branch and marketing activity, and to identify and close cybersecurity gaps — specifically, "to help identify as well as write and test code to close previously unknown cyber vulnerabilities."
Externally, he said the firm is using AI to improve the customer experience and is evaluating how "third-party models and agents can provide value-added capabilities to our clients."
They also introduced a new AI-powered tool for financial advisers in the Wealth and Investment Management business, built on BlackRock's Aladdin Wealth technology.
Scharf described it as designed to streamline routine work and said it is the first of several planned capabilities under the bank's broader WIM AI strategy. Wells Fargo's WIM business had approximately $2.5 trillion in client assets at quarter end.
On the question of AI agents and deposits — raised by an analyst who asked whether agents could accelerate cash movement to higher-yield accounts — Scharf pushed back.
He said high-yield alternatives have existed for years and are already easy to access, that consumers are unlikely to give agents unilateral control over their money in the near term, and that customers keep deposits at Wells Fargo for reasons beyond yield.
"There's no question that agents will become a part of the way people interact," he said, but added that a mass movement driven by agents "is completely overdone" as a near-term concern. He said the bank is building its own agents to serve customers better and retain that relationship.
Scharf also addressed AI's implications for cost structure directly. "This idea of scale matters in an AI world is even more so," he said, arguing that a bank of Wells Fargo's size can spread the cost of building an agent across a far larger operation than a smaller competitor could.
CFO Michael Santomassimo listed AI-related disruption among the external risks the firm monitors, and said the bank is "very, very cognizant of all the different kinds of layered risks" tied to AI investments in its lending book.