Commerzbank to Cut 3,000 Jobs, Invest €600M in AI

Commerzbank announced it will cut about 3,000 roles, roughly 8% of its workforce, and allocate €600 million to artificial intelligence over the next four years as part of its Momentum 2030 plan. The bank expects the AI programme to generate about €500 million of additional annual value from 2030 onward.

The bank stated the measures aim to accelerate profitable growth, raise efficiency and speed up technological innovation. The €600 million budget will fund wider deployment of models and AI agents across front- and back-office functions, with an initial focus on fraud detection, regulatory compliance and document processing.

Planned applications include an agentic AI complaints-management process, use of Hawk AI to analyse large data sets for money laundering and financial crime, and AI-supported review of annual reports to identify risks earlier. The bank expects later stages to have AI agents complete end-to-end tasks such as account switching, know-your-customer checks, document verification and contract drafting, reducing manual work.

Management estimates the AI roll-out will free up and partially redeploy about 10% of the bank’s capacities, enabling the planned headcount reduction.

Commerzbank reported first-quarter profit of €1.4 billion, up 11%, and revenue of €3.2 billion, up 5%. The bank is targeting full-year revenues of €15 billion by 2028 and €16.8 billion by 2030.

CEO Bettina Orlopp described the quarter as “record-level” and called the updated targets “ambitious while remaining reliable in their execution.” She added that Momentum 2030 demonstrates the bank’s strategic direction and that “every alternative must be measured against this.”

The announcement arrives while Italy’s UniCredit is pursuing a takeover of Commerzbank. The bank indicated it will assess any strategic offers against the targets and projections set out in Momentum 2030.

Other European banks are increasing AI investment. Santander projects its AI and data programmes could generate more than €1 billion of annual business value by 2028 through cost savings and revenue growth. An industry survey found 59% of firms reported AI-driven productivity gains in 2025, up from 32% a year earlier, and 21% said AI is directly driving business growth, compared with 8% previously.