The news: Wells Fargo is partnering with Google Cloud to equip the bank’s 215,000 employees with advanced generative and agentic AI tools, per American Banker. The phased implementation will span the next few months.

The strategy: The AI tools—which include Gemini Deep Research, NotebookLM, and Agentspace—are intended to boost efficiency and give employees deeper insights on their tasks, allowing them to handle more complex ones over time.

Wells Fargo will also create virtual assistants for branch bankers and customer service representatives, with some agents eventually handling simple customer-facing tasks like reordering a debit card. However, the bank has no near-term plans for fully autonomous agents without human oversight.

Why this matters: If Wells Fargo sees greater efficiency, a better customer experience, and savings from the wide AI rollout, it could set an industry trend. Competitors should at least begin exploring how they can implement agentic AI in their own operations. 

And Google Cloud’s involvement serves as a reminder that these solutions don’t need to be developed internally. Third-party partnerships may be especially valuable for smaller financial institutions that want to catch up on AI innovation.