A global financial powerhouse headquartered in London, Standard Chartered, has announced plans to fire over 7,000 employees and replace them with Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that will improve efficiency in its operations.

The bank’s chief executive, Bill Winters, said the shift towards AI should not be viewed purely as a cost-cutting measure, noting that significant financial resources would be invested in replacing “lower-value human capital” with technology.

“It’s not cost-cutting,” Mr Winters said. “It’s replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in.” 

The job cuts will be carried out in phases over the next four years. The bank, which has nearly 82,000 staff worldwide, plans to terminate about 7,800 persons to make room for AI automation.

Mr Winters said the bank will avail training opportunities to affected staff seeking to reskill.

“So, the people that want to reskill, ​that want to carry on, we’re giving every opportunity to reposition,” Winters said.

Workers in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw, and other back-office centres will be the most impacted by the job cuts.

The move comes as Americans are rebelling against AI adoption, arguing that the intelligence was affecting children’s mental acumen as well as costing adults their jobs.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt was booed at the University of Arizona on Friday for saying AI’s “technological transformation” will be “larger, faster and more consequential than what came before.”