Last Updated on October 8, 2026 by TMB
DNB Bank ASA, Norway’s largest bank, has announced it will lay off 400 staff members and replace them with artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The bank said on Tuesday that it is investing significantly in technology, seeking digital tools to serve customers better.
DNB’s official statement says the move is to improve customer experience, boost efficiency, and anticipate and meet future needs. It describes the layoffs as necessary to achieve this goal.
DNB Says Agentic AI Boosts Efficiency
The bank has been simplifying many of its tasks and functions, some of which it has done by adopting agentic AI. The technology has helped DNB Bank to increase speed and capacity, streamlining processes better than previous manual methods. Seeing an increase in efficiency, the bank decided to lay off 400 full-time staff members.
According to Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kjerstin Braathen:
“AI is changing the way we work and how we deliver services to our customers. We are already seeing considerable gains, and are therefore adapting our organization to a new reality.”
Braathen however, promised that DNB Bank will support affected employees as it recognizes that the restructuring will affect people who have worked at the bank for several years. On the cost of the restructuring, the CEO said the process will wrap up in Q4, and details on any related financial effects will be revealed later in the year. Following the announcement, DNB Bank’s shares climbed 1%.
AI Replacing Staff Across Banking Sector
DNB is following in the footsteps of London-headquartered Standard Chartered Bank, which announced in May that it plans to reduce its workforce by about 7,800 in a process expected to take four years. This translates to 15% of its 52,000 staff. Specifically, the bank stated AI as the reason, explaining that artificial intelligence allows the organization to reduce operational costs and boost profitability.
StanChart said most affected personnel would be in back-office roles in Kuala Lumpur, Bengaluru, Warsaw, and Chennai. According to CEO Bill Winters, the aim is to replace staff considered of lower value with AI, a comment he later apologized for. Winters had said:
“It’s not cost-cutting. It’s replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in.”
Also in May, HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery told staff to resist fighting AI. Elhedery said generative AI will render some jobs obsolete, but also create new ones.
Last year, Bloomberg Intelligence predicted that AI will cut up to 200,000 banking jobs over the next five years. In a survey conducted by BI, executives of several banks, including Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co., said a net 3% of their workforces would lose their jobs.
