AI is making its way into the workplace in more ways than one, and after reports of AI replacing HR workers, we now have AI digital workers entering banks in 2025. New reports from Bank of New York Mellon indicate that it now has dozens of AI-supported digital employees that aren’t just tools but active workers with their own company logins. The AI full-time staff signing into work at the banks is just the natural evolution of these tools, but it has come quicker than we’d expected.
A full-fledged AI workforce does not appear feasible with the level of advancements we’ve seen so far, but it appears that some businesses have figured out a way to make it work. AI digital staff in the banking sector could feel like the right place for these workers due to the delicate nature of the work being done, however, it could also be a dangerous place for them, considering the importance of trust and human connection in most monetary transactions. BNY Mellon’s AI team members are changing the landscape of work faster than previously imagined.
Image: Freepik
AI Digital Workers Are Finding Employment at Banks in 2025
BNY Mellon is changing how we see AI team members in 2025. According to The Wall Street Journal, the bank now has dozens of digital employees who work with their own company logins and report to their own managers. The tools, or employees to be politically correct, work with their human counterparts, taking on a very specific role at the organization to perform a set list of activities at their jobs every day.
Currently, these AI personas specialize in two areas of operations—one for coding and the other for validating payment instructions. It reportedly took AI Hub three months to put these digital employee personas together, and more are on their way.
The AI Digital Staff in the Banking Sector Are Only Starting to Make Their Mark
From the reports, it appears that eventually, these AI full-time staff at the banks will have their own email accounts and could communicate with their colleagues on messaging platforms like Teams to get through their workday and better collaborate on tasks. They work autonomously, but the goal is for these AI digital workers to be fully integrated into the workforce, eliminating the barriers that currently exist between human and digital workers.
BNY Mellon is working on building more AI team members in other areas of the business, apart from coding and payment instruction validation. This may put other jobs at risk of invasion from AI, but the bank claims it will continue to hire top human talent in parallel with its employees.
While the news of AI digital workers in the banks may sound unusual, it isn’t the only company or service sector experimenting with an AI workforce. While other businesses haven’t evolved to give these digital workers identities and roles, AI tools are becoming just as central to many operations. From JP Morgan to Microsoft, most businesses have identified positions for AI to fill, and they are slowly transitioning towards relying on it more and more.
The AI Workforce Is Gaining Ground, But a Planned Approach Is Necessary
With every passing day, there are growing reports on how AI is changing the landscape of employment. While Meta poaches employees from OpenAI after failing to do so in the past, Duolingo is replacing contract workers with AI to create its language courses. Salesforce has AI doing 30% of its coding and customer service, and JPMorgan has developed 600 use cases for AI across its business.
It is quite evident that AI automation in finance is only one part of the larger trend towards favoring AI tools. While this could be greatly beneficial to most businesses, it is also important to exercise caution. Recent reports from Gartner predict that 40% of businesses will likely scrap their agentic AI investments by 2027, and we’ve previously seen similar reports that are already regretting their hurried investment into AI.
Those who want to adopt AI tools should collaborate with employees to uncover the best application of such tools in the business before initiating their investments. Despite how capable these AI digital workers appear to be, it is also important to ensure there is some supervision to detect any flaws and limitations early on.
Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights into how the landscape of work is evolving right now.
