While the world's major economic powers fight to win the artificial intelligence war, the new technology is also causing shock waves in the labor market, leading to collective anxiety, with many employees living in fear of losing their jobs.
Although there is a chorus of pessimists who claim that AI risks becoming a major threat to the job market, leading to mass unemployment, Bank of American chief Brian Moynihan does not anticipate the advance of technology to lead to a “slaughter” among employees, according to Fortune.
The increased demand for AI, which is also causing a global RAM crisis, can cause disruption at all levels and in the banking sector, the Wall Street veteran says.
But he remains circumspect about a possible collapse of the labor market, given that the world's economies have already undergone technological transformations.
The example given by the head of Bank of America
A guest on the “This is Working” podcast, Moynihan bet that history will repeat itself and offered a telling example. In 1969, there were about 80 million people working in the US. In 2019, the number of employees had reached 160 million, according to the banker, who pointed out that technology has radically reshaped the American economy while the number of employees has doubled in the last half century.
“People were writing … in 1969 that there would be no more managers in business because the computer itself would eliminate the need for managers because they were just transferring information. Well, guess what? Today, we have 20,000 managers at Bank of America. And we were told in 1969 that there would be no more manufacturing in the U.S., that there would be no more jobs, that computers would eliminate them, that Japan would take over,” said the chief Bank of America.
Moynihan, who has been at the helm of Bank of America since 2010 with a salary of $41 million in 2025, is not the only optimist on Wall Street.
Partial optimism at JP Morgan as well
And the head of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, takes a balanced view of the evolution of AI and points to the opportunities it can bring. Before Christmas, he suggested that technology could one day lead to shorter working hours and “wonderful lives”, even a life expectancy of 100 years.
But that doesn't mean employees or policymakers can afford to ignore the fact that AI will lead to some disruptions in the labor market, in his view.
But his optimism did come with a caveat. Dimon said in an interview with Fortune last year that AI “will eliminate jobs” and that “people should stop sticking their heads in the sand.”
He called for a serious discussion between government, companies and society about professional retraining, income protection and even early retirement.
“You can't just take all these people and throw them out on the street where their next job is $30,000 a year when they're making $150,000. You're going to have a revolution,” Dimon said.
Financial institutions are using AI
For his part, Moynihan acknowledges that the impact of artificial intelligence will be real. Like many other financial institutions, Bank of America already uses automated models and algorithms in areas such as trading.
For the head of Bank of America, the new artificial intelligence tools are, above all, extensions of human capabilities and represent “a great benefit” that applies to all actors in the financial sector.
The adoption of artificial intelligence in the banking system is constantly accelerating. According to the Evident AI Index, updated in October 2025, Bank of America, the second largest in the world, ranks among the top 10 companies globally for AI innovation and transparency. JP Morgan Chase is the sector leader, followed by Capital One and Royal Bank of Canada.
