"AI disrupts everything" spreads to Wall Street! Morgan Stanley (MS.US) global layoffs of 3% cover three major core departments.

Some media reports quoting informed sources revealed that Wall Street financial giant Morgan Stanley (MS.US) will cut about 3% of its global workforce, or about 2,500 positions. Analysts commented on this news trend, saying that with the continuous white-collar layoffs trend in the US corporate world this year, this larger-scale layoff by Morgan Stanley is more like a result of the combined effects of "AI intelligence to enhance efficiency + organizational optimization + resource reallocation", especially as AI has indeed become one of the important narrative backgrounds for layoffs and restructuring key business departments in financial enterprises. In the past 12 months, Morgan Stanley's share price has risen by about 38%. According to media reports, this round of job cuts mainly affected employees in the three core business units of the bank: investment banking and trading, wealth management, and investment management. This personnel reduction reflects the evolution of Morgan Stanley's business focus, adjustments in geographical layout, cost reduction and efficiency improvement brought by AI intelligence, and considerations of individual performance. Informed sources stated that the layoffs are taking place simultaneously in the US and international offices. Many job cuts occurred on Wednesday, despite discussions within the company beginning last week. In recent years, Morgan Stanley has carried out several rounds of small-scale layoffs. In the wealth management division, the layoffs involved private bankers and some junior operational positions. Some affected employees were previously responsible for providing mortgage loans and related credit counseling services to high-net-worth clients. These workforce adjustments come after Morgan Stanley experienced a strong financial performance in the fiscal year. Currently, Morgan Stanley has around 83,000 employees, with the bank setting new annual revenue records in 2025 from its investment banking and market trading business as well as the wealth management department. Looking at the entire industry, Wall Street's major financial institutions had one of their strongest years in 2025, thanks to a significant increase in corporate transaction activities, volatile stock markets, and active trading amidst continuous new highs, along with affluent high-net-worth clients continuing to allocate funds to proprietary financial products. Morgan Stanley's wealth management division typically contributes nearly half of the giant's overall revenue, with fourth-quarter revenue growth of 13%. White-collar workers, the first batch of losers in the AI era? These layoffs come amidst a broader wave of white-collar job cuts in the US corporate world. Many companies view artificial intelligence technology, especially AI systems like Anthropic's Claude Cowork and OpenClaw, capable of autonomously executing tasks, as a core reason behind the productivity gains expected from the AI explosion in 2026. Last month, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced that his digital payment giant Block (XYZ.US) would cut about 40% of its workforce, over 4,000 people, citing rapidly advancing AI systems allowing the company to operate all business functions with fewer employees. However, some analysts question this explanation, suggesting that the move primarily reflects efforts by an organization perceived as overstaffed with declining profit growth to reduce operating costs. Other tech companies are also citing AI cost reduction and efficiency enhancement as part of their business restructuring efforts. Cloud software giant Salesforce (CRM.US) cut around 4,000 customer support positions last year, while social media operator Pinterest (PINS.US) stated plans to cut nearly 15% of its workforce and reallocate resources to AI engineering-related positions. The narrative of "AI disrupting everything" has now spread to Wall Street The "Anthropic storm" that hit software stocks is still fermenting in global stock markets, with the sell-off accelerating and spreading to traditional industries like financial consulting and management, real estate consulting, and any sector that appears likely to be completely disrupted by AI. The market's pessimistic expectations that "AI disrupts everything" are impacting various industry sectors, from software, SaaS, and PE to insurance, traditional investment banking, wealth management, real estate and property management, and even the logistics sectors, all experiencing declines in turn. In the past two to three weeks, AI has swept through traditional industries one by one, with investors accelerating the sell-off of potential "losers". With innovative AI agents focusing on agent-style workflow being introduced in batches, the technology could disrupt one traditional industry after another and suppress pricing power in a broader economy. Since the beginning of this year, concerns that "the AI super wave might compress corporate profits, disrupt employment, and bring deflationary impacts" have quickly spread to multiple traditional economic sectors, like software, private credit, wealth management, real estate services, and insurance. The grand narrative of "AI disrupting everything" in the market strictly began earlier in February, when Anthropic released a heavyweight legal plugin for its Claude Cowork, a rapidly popular global AI agent. This super tool for contract review with extremely low technical barriers to achieve full automation using AI, caused the market values of companies like Thomson Reuters Corporation and LexisNexis parent company RELX to evaporate by billions of dollars. Market concerns have grown about the potential weakening of existing business models across industries due to the explosive and viral spread of AI agents like Claude and OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot, Moltbot). From the perspective of fintech and AI engineering, the first positions reshaped by AI technology on Wall Street are usually not top-level relationship positions, but positions that are streamlined, standardized, and templated, such as some operations, document processing, compliance support, internal research organization, basic client services, and certain loan support elements. For example, positions in the wealth management division of Morgan Stanley that were eliminated include roles in private banking support and some mortgage/loan-related positions, which are easier to be automated by workflow, AI-assisted writing, data extraction, and rule engine transformation. A study report from Morgan Stanley itself shows that among the industries most likely to be affected by AI, the sample companies saw an average net reduction of 4% in employees and an average increase in productivity of 11.5%. For Morgan Stanley, this global round of layoffs is primarily a management and organizational optimization action. However, viewed under the grand narrative of "AI disrupting everything" in 2026, it indeed reflects a deeper trend: as almost all major companies are reevaluating which positions can be automated and which resources should be redirected to high-value business, Wall Street is entering a stage of "layoffs even with strong performance", as the market no longer rewards just growth but also rewards operating leverage and efficiency improvement driven by AI technology.