Sberbank conducted a large-scale staff reduction in 2025 using artificial intelligence, and now this process has been temporarily suspended. This was announced by the head of the bank, German Gref, at a public administration congress.
We reduced 20% of our staff last year, 20% of engineers. This was unthinkable even three years ago, they were growing exponentially. Last year we reduced 20%. And we reduced living people. It was a shock, actually, inside the company. We have now paused, but, in principle, we need to move on.
The head of the bank spoke about plans to reduce a fifth of the central office employees back in November. Then he explained: Sber is closing ineffective projects, and employees whose work is recognized as useless are selected by a multi-agent system based on AI.
According to Interfax, as of September 30, 2025, the Sberbank group employed 294.6 thousand people. Since the beginning of the year, the staff has decreased by 4.4% — that is, by 13.5 thousand employees.
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