Morgan Stanley’s surprise decision to cut 2,500 jobs — 3 percent of its global workforce — was driven primarily by artificial intelligence, according to reporting by the New York Post’s Charles Gasparino.
The firm officially attributed the cuts to “shifting business and location priorities” and employee performance, but Gasparino reports that sources inside Morgan Stanley say the real story is the replacement of back-office workers with AI bots across the firm’s investment banking, trading, and wealth management divisions.
“Management just launched an awesome AI program with ChatGPT in the wealth management division,” one Morgan Stanley executive told Gasparino. “Lots of back offices getting the ax in this.”
The timing undercuts the performance explanation, Gasparino notes. Morgan Stanley shattered revenue records last year, making it implausible that the firm had suddenly discovered thousands of underperforming employees.
Gasparino reports that other Wall Street firms are expected to follow suit, pointing to Block — the payments company founded by Jack Dorsey — as one firm that has already openly acknowledged AI-driven workforce reductions. Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the AI angle, per Gasparino’s reporting.
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