Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

After reading through the recent AI thread, it's clear: AI isn’t replacing anyone at WF anytime soon. But it is making everyone less productive. Copilot is a joke, the mandatory training is useless, and the leadership’s obsession with MSFT tools is dragging us down.

Some folks are doing amazing things with AI outside of work—apps in 3 days, workflow automation—but none of that is happening here. WF is years behind in tech and will probably stay that way.

Ironically, it’s not AI that’s threatening jobs—it’s the deadweight culture, clunky processes, and leadership that can’t deliver. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is moving on.

The divide is real. Some of us want to build, but we’re stuck in a place where tech happens to us, not with us. AI might not be a threat to our jobs at WF, but WF is a threat to our careers.

All this Microsoft garbage is getting so old. It's cr-p, but Shart being on their boat means we're stuck with everything they make, forever.

Ai is great. I use and subscribe to Gemini. I use Perplexity, ChatGPT and Grok.

CoPilot is trash. We are locked into the worst AI because our CEO is on the board of directors at Microsoft.

Not to worry. As long as TK is in charge of AI everyone is safe. She has no intelligence and let’s be real, she can’t deliver anything. Look at her record. She even failed as CIO. Nope, we have nothing to fear about AI here, only boomerangs.

@az excellent points. Many of these posts on here show that people are not willing to have an open mind. Lot more risk management folks on this board now. They have been bullying this bank into a "can't do it without them" for so long. No wonder the bank needs to get rid of them with their fear to learn mentality.

I'll be long retired before WF ever allows us to use any useful AI tools for work product. Not sure why I should care about it. We have 3-5 years minimum before we do anything with it.

Read AI 2027.

AI is not a threat? Ever heard of SkyNet? ;-)

@av Try a TDD approach and have it write the unit tests first. Validate the unit tests, then go. See how that works.

But again, copilot is ok, but there are better tools not accessible at WF right now. That's the problem. Also, it sounds like you do need to practice more and I bet you'll eventually find it's better when you understand how to deal with the LLM weaknesses.

As far as your comments about needing to support it, you're right. I am certain there are flaws in it, despite my best efforts of instructing it to be scalable, modular, etc. That's missing the point though. The app works exactly as I intended it to. And to reiterate, I have little coding background (basic scripts and powershell) and was able to work through literally all the problems I encoutered. It was probably slower than a seasoned sr or lead dev, but I was able to do it. Now, if I could do it, imagine what YOU could do with the right tools and some practice?

@af I hope you enjoy supporting the app you generated with AI.

I've used plenty of AI code generators. Yes, I see the benefit in them, they helped me tremendously when learning some aspects of a coding language. Every single one of the methods and classes I had them build required me to edit them in order for them to fit my use case.

Would there be less work If I were better at prompting? Probably, but it's a learning process.

You would do good to stop assuming people who don't see the value you do are Luddites.

@a7 Sounds like detractors in the 70's and 80's being asked to use computers.

The tech definitely isn't perfect, but neither are humans. Also, after using Tachyon and Copilot versus other tools outside of the WF network, I can say the tools at WF are really inadequate and the bank needs to invest more into the technology.

In my personal time I just built a whole app in 3 days that would have taken a small team weeks to months to accomplish. I am fairly technical (tech adjacent); I'm not an engineer. Now, this isn't the same as huge enterprise applications and the tech is still somewhat immature, but this is the direction technology is heading, and it's accelerating. Rapidly.

AI is creating more overhead for you, because WF su-ks at advancing and supporting newer and better technology. They've always, ALWAYS, been years behind the curve with tech adoption.

You'll be fairly safe at WF, but the rest of the world is going to outpace us. I am convinced that soon, product people will be developing software with a much smaller of highly experienced engineers and architects overseeing the final output and deployment. Devs probably need to start training up on both AI and product management.

I spend more time fixing the mistakes AI generates than it would have taken me to do it myself.

Chastising end users for not being good at it is not going to sell your point. If your job is creating simple talking points to slap on a PowerPoint, or bulk out an end of year review... Sure, it probably makes your life easier. If your job is critically thinking through decisions that impact millions of customer accounts, with crunched timelines and attention to detail?

Spending hours prompting something that then requires hours to edit is about as inefficient as it gets.

One day AI might make parts of my job easier, but so far it's just another layer of useless overhead, just like most managers and processes.

If you're not actively figuring out how to work smarter with AI...the investors who buy into it will find a CEO hype man who will.

Ironiclly op could have used AI to clean up their post. As just a basic use of the tool to get their feet wet.

Straight-up denial.

AI isn’t some magic fix; it’s a tool that’s already changing the game. The problem isn’t AI itself, it’s folks who refuse to learn how to use it and instead complain about how things used to be. If you’re not actively figuring out how to work smarter with AI, you’re just making yourself obsolete.

Bottom line: if you keep treating AI like a joke or a hassle, you’re the one who’s gonna lose. So either get with the program or start updating that resume.