Dive Brief:

• Wells Fargo will give its employees access to AI agents and tools from Google Cloud, the two companies said Tuesday. The rollout is part of an expanded partnership between the bank and the cloud provider. 
• The tools will support the work of branch bankers, investment bankers, customer relations and corporate teams. The agentic tools can help employees navigate policies and procedures, sort through scores of documentation and provide real-time market insights, among other functions.
• More than 2,000 Wells Fargo employees are using Google's agentic AI platform Agentspace, and the bank plans to expand employee access in the coming months across all teams, the company said in a Tuesday email.

Dive Insight:

The financial services industry is carefully entering the agentic stage of AI, with Wells Fargo as the latest banking firm to deploy agents to fuel productivity.

BNY gave its employees access to a multi-agentic platform dubbed Eliza, CEO Robin Vince said last month during the bank’s second-quarter earnings call. Goldman Sachs began piloting its AI agent, Devin, focused on software development, CEO David Solomon said last month.

"We will be deploying these agentic AI developers for prioritized use cases, which we believe will significantly enhance velocity, transform our capabilities and drive efficiency," Solomon said to investors.

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf also addressed the impact AI capabilities will have on the industry as the technology evolves during an earnings call last month. 

"From an AI perspective, it's very early to see any impact of any significance from AI," Scharf told investors. "But we've got capabilities and pilots in our branch system, in our op system, in our call centers – really across anywhere where you've got anything manual. Those things are starting to mature a little bit."

Wells Fargo's agentic AI rollout comes less than a year after the company stood up a generative AI team led by Tracy Kerrins, consumer CIO and head of enterprise generative AI.

“Wells Fargo's adoption of Google Agentspace marks a bold step forward in making banking simpler and smarter — for our customers and employees,” Kerrins said in a Tuesday email. “By leveraging advanced agentic AI capabilities, we can get answers and insights faster, work more efficiently, and free up time to focus on what matters most: helping people reach their financial goals.”