Wells Fargo Pursues Bank-Wide AI Transformation, Cites 40% Sales Lift in Banker Tools

Wells Fargo is pursuing a bank-wide artificial intelligence transformation built on a hub-and-spoke operating model, prioritizing high-impact use cases and workforce upskilling, executive Faraz Shafiq said Tuesday at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas. The $2.3 trillion-asset bank aims to "fundamentally transform how our bank operates," said Shafiq, head of AI products and solutions, who joined in February from Amazon Web Services. He said reworking workflows around AI is his biggest focus for the rest of this year and into 2027. Shafiq cited proof points: the Fargo virtual assistant has logged about 1 billion customer interactions, and banker intelligence tools are lifting product sales rates by 40%. A model risk management team's small language model outperforms off-the-shelf models on debit card fraud detection, he said. Wells said last week it hired Cayetano Gea-Carrasco as head of AI and data for consumer banking and lending. The bank rose to No. 5 from No. 6 in this year's Evident AI index, driven largely by an 11-point gain in leadership.