AI Handles the Busywork as JPMorgan’s EMEA Private Bank Plans to Add Advisers

JPMorgan Chase’s private bank wants more wealth advisers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa over the next few years, and it is counting on AI to let each of them get through more of the work that surrounds a client. Pablo Garnica, chief executive of the bank’s EMEA private bank, told Bloomberg in an interview published Sunday that the unit is using AI to onboard clients, for investment research and for other tasks, with the goal of raising adviser productivity.

He also put a number on hiring. According to Bloomberg’s report, Garnica expects the EMEA adviser count to grow 10% to 15% over the next three to five years, with the bank pushing hardest in continental Europe and still growing in the Middle East.

What the software does for advisers

JPMorgan has described its tools in some detail. When Euromoney named it the world’s best private bank for digital solutions in March, the magazine described Connect Coach, an adviser tool in the bank’s generative AI kit that prepares meeting materials, pulls together market intelligence and suggests next-best actions. The firmwide LLM Suite, the bank’s internal large language model platform, had processed millions of adviser prompts by then.

The client-facing side is narrower by design. Euromoney said the bank deliberately avoids automated portfolio construction and personalized investment advice, using AI instead to summarize material and help clients find existing research. “We are a digitally enabled, not digital only, organisation,” Andrew Catterall, head of digital and data transformation for the international private bank, told the magazine.

JPMorgan’s top executive has been more guarded about AI from outside the bank. On JPMorgan’s earnings call this month, Jamie Dimon said the bank would not let just any outside AI agent into its systems, one of several warnings from bank chiefs about rogue agents that week.

Fewer staff in Geneva, more advisers on the way

The bank’s Swiss subsidiary shows how this plays out in headcount. J.P. Morgan (Suisse) SA ended 2025 with 816 staff, down from 830 a year earlier, a drop its annual report describes as “reflecting operational efficiencies and natural attrition.” The same report says net adviser hiring sped up during the year, with more growth planned for 2026, and that the unit widened its use of AI tools so teams could spend more time on higher-value client work.

Hiring targets are familiar territory for Garnica, who joined JPMorgan in 1996. In a 2022 Bloomberg interview carried by WealthManagement.com, he said, “The headline figure on talent growth is around 10% a year — that’s net growth.” His unit had added 12% to its adviser ranks in 2021.

Citigroup is placing a similar bet on people backed by software. At Citi’s investor day in May, wealth head Andy Sieg said the bank would add more than 400 client advisers and personal bankers in the U.S. and about 100 people at its global private bank, American Banker reported. Citi’s investor day slides include a section on Citi Sky, which the deck calls “intelligence for advisors.” “More advisors means deeper relationships and more investment conversations,” Sieg said.

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