Some bankers and observers have suggested that only the boring parts of jobs, drudgery like data entry and filling out forms, will disappear so the humans will be able to focus on more interesting tasks, and that no actual jobs will be lost. Bank employees themselves seem to think this. In an Accenture survey released last week of 1,300 nonexecutive bank employees, 67% said they believe AI will improve their work-life balance, and 57% expect it will expand their career prospects.

But Autonomous Research also issued a report last week that estimated that in the U.S. alone, 2.5 million financial services employees will be "exposed" to AI technologies in the front, middle and back office -- 1.2 million working in banking and lending, 460,000 in investment management, and 865,000 in insurance. "These functions will see 20-40% productivity gains, or unemployment, depending on your vantage point," the report stated. About $1 trillion in costs will be exposed to AI transformation in financial services sectors by 2030, according to the report; $450 million of this would in banking. In banking, 70% of front-office jobs will be dislocated by AI, the researchers say: 485,000 tellers, 219,000 customer service representatives, and 174,000 loan interviewers and clerks. They will be replaced by chatbots, voice assistants and automated authentication and biometric technology.

And 96,000 financial managers and 13,000 compliance officers will be laid off as AI-based anti-money-laundering, anti-fraud, compliance and monitoring software fills in. Another 250,000 loan officers will lose their jobs to AI-based credit underwriting and smart contracts technology.