By Joe Wallace

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters struggled to draw a line under comments that the bank would replace "lower-value human capital" with AI.

His attempt to contextualize his comments in a LinkedIn post Friday backfired. Three hours later, he posted an apology for his communications blunder.

It is an example of the difficulties CEOs face in describing what they perceive to be the benefits and the downsides of AI in the workplace.

Winters tried to douse the furor with an initial post on Friday that said Standard Chartered "will continue to speak honestly about the impact of technological change." He suggested he had been misunderstood, saying his point had been that employers have a responsibility to move workers from jobs that are more vulnerable to automation into "higher-value roles."

Soon he was back with an apology. "I have received a lot of support for the messages in my previous post but still get questions about my choice of words, which I know has caused upset to some colleagues. For that I am sorry," Winters said, appending a partial transcript of the meeting in which he made the ill-fated comment.

The public-relations kerfuffle began on Tuesday, when Winters was in Hong Kong to announce new financial targets, which included a plan to reduce by 15% the lender's workforce of back-office jobs by 2030.

Speaking to a group of journalists, he used the example of a tech upgrade in Hong Kong that killed some jobs, and said the aim of automation wasn't to cut costs.

Winters, who is more outspoken than many executives who are trained not to say much in front of reporters, went on: "It is replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we're putting in."

Some social-media users described Winters's language in the media meeting as insensitive, as did a former president of Singapore, one of Standard Chartered's biggest markets.

London-based Standard Chartered specializes in emerging-markets lending, with a heavy focus on Asia and the Middle East.

Winters tried to walk back the comments on Wednesday with a memo to bank employees in which he said that "where roles do fall away, it reflects changes in the work, not the value of our people."

He didn't, however, apologize, and the PR snafu kept rumbling.

On Thursday, JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon attempted to defend Winters, a former protégé. "Bill's a friend of mine and all of us say something incorrectly," he said in a Bloomberg interview. "But I also think it will be all jobs. I don't think it will be higher level, lower level. I think it will be more than you think."

Winters was on a trip to Hong Kong with Georges Elhedery, chief executive of rival bank HSBC. Speaking to his own bank's investors after Winters, Elhedery was more cautious.

"We all know generative AI will destroy certain jobs and will create new jobs," he said. "But my initial mission is I need 200,000 colleagues with us on this journey." Elhedery said the challenge was to make all of the bank's employees feel empowered by AI so they don't resist it.

Most banks are showcasing AI initiatives as a way to save money. Few Europe-based lenders, however, have given quantifiable targets or specified how many jobs could go, according to a recent note by Citigroup analysts. Asked about AI and job numbers at a conference in March, the chief operating officer of ING said the Dutch bank had cut about 1,000 jobs last year and would shed 1,250 more in 2026.

In the long battle between capital and labor, there was a winner this week in London. Standard Chartered's stock was on track to rise almost 3% and close just shy of its record high from December 2007.

Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 22, 2026 11:06 ET (15:06 GMT)

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