Will AI Replace New Accounts Clerks? A 71% Automation Risk by 2028

The Bank Branch Where Nobody Opens Your Account Anymore

Remember the last time you opened a bank account? If you did it on your phone — snapping a photo of your driver's license, scanning your face, and tapping "agree" to terms you did not read — you already know why new accounts clerks are facing a -12% employment decline through 2034. [Fact] That is one of the steepest drops in any financial services occupation.

And the numbers behind this decline are not abstract. They tell a specific story about which parts of the job are disappearing and which tiny sliver might survive.

The Hard Numbers

New accounts clerks face an overall AI exposure of 68% and an automation risk of 58% as of 2025. [Fact] The automation mode is classified as "automate" — not "augment." That distinction matters. In "augment" roles, AI helps you do your job better. In "automate" roles, AI is doing the job itself.

By 2028, exposure is projected to reach 81% and automation risk 71%. [Estimate] Those are among the highest numbers we track across all 1,016 occupations on this site.

With a median salary of ,350 and about 37,200 professionals in the role, [Fact] this is a mid-volume, modest-compensation position that serves as an entry point into banking for many workers. The combination of high automation risk, negative employment outlook, and relatively low compensation creates a challenging career picture.

Three Tasks, All Under Pressure

Processing account opening applications is at 78% automation — the highest task-level number for this role. [Fact] Digital onboarding platforms from companies like Alloy, Onfido, and Jumio can handle the entire application workflow: collecting personal information, running instant KYC (Know Your Customer) checks, pulling credit bureau data, verifying addresses, and generating account numbers. What once required a 30-minute in-person interview now takes three minutes on a smartphone.

Banks are not just experimenting with this. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo all report that the majority of new retail account openings now happen through digital channels. The in-branch account opening is becoming the exception, reserved for complex situations like business accounts, trust accounts, or customers who cannot navigate digital interfaces.

Verifying customer identity documents runs at 72% automation. [Fact] AI-powered identity verification has become remarkably sophisticated. Document authentication algorithms can detect forged IDs by analyzing micro-printing, hologram patterns, and document structure. Facial matching compares the selfie you take during onboarding against your ID photo with accuracy rates exceeding 99% in controlled conditions. [Claim] Liveness detection ensures you are a real person, not a photo of a photo. The manual process of a clerk holding your driver's license up to the light and squinting at the hologram is being replaced by algorithms that check dozens of security features simultaneously.

Explaining account terms and services is at 55% automation. [Fact] This is the most human-dependent task, but even here, AI chatbots and interactive onboarding flows handle much of the explanation. Digital interfaces walk customers through fee structures, interest rates, overdraft policies, and linked services with personalized recommendations based on their profile. AI-powered customer service agents can answer follow-up questions about account features 24/7.

The reason this task is not higher is that some customers — particularly elderly individuals, those with limited English proficiency, and small business owners with complex banking needs — still benefit from human explanation. But this is a shrinking segment, not a growing one.

Why This Role Is Particularly Vulnerable

New accounts clerks sit at the intersection of two powerful trends: the digitization of banking and the automation of routine administrative tasks. Unlike loan officers, who assess complex risk and build client relationships, or bank tellers, who handle a wider variety of transactions, new accounts clerks perform a relatively narrow set of tasks that are overwhelmingly digital-friendly.

Compare this with commercial loan officers, who negotiate complex deal structures, or insurance claims clerks, who handle ambiguous damage assessments. In both cases, judgment and ambiguity provide some insulation from automation. New accounts opening is, by contrast, a largely standardized process — making it an ideal target for end-to-end automation.

The -12% BLS projection is not just about AI. It reflects the broader shift from physical branch banking to digital banking, accelerated by the pandemic and sustained by customer preference. Branches are consolidating, and the first positions cut in a consolidation are typically front-line administrative roles.

What You Should Do If This Is Your Job

• Move into relationship banking. The skills you have in customer interaction translate to personal banker, financial advisor assistant, or customer relationship roles where human judgment and trust-building are central.

• Specialize in complex account types. Business accounts, fiduciary accounts, and institutional relationships are harder to automate than retail checking accounts. Develop expertise in the products that require human setup.

• Learn compliance and fraud prevention. KYC/AML (Anti-Money Laundering) compliance is a growing field driven by regulatory expansion. Your knowledge of account opening processes is directly relevant to compliance roles.

• Build digital banking proficiency. Understanding how the digital onboarding systems work — their limitations, their failure modes, their escalation paths — positions you as a specialist who bridges the digital and human channels.

• Consider adjacent financial services roles. Loan interviewers, bookkeeping clerks, and accounts receivable specialists share transferable skills and may offer more stable outlooks.

For the complete task-level automation data and five-year projections, visit our New Accounts Clerks occupation page.

Related: AI and Banking Roles

• Will AI Replace Bank Tellers? — The broader branch transformation
• Will AI Replace Loan Officers? — Relationship lending versus automation
• Will AI Replace Loan Interviewers? — Document-heavy financial roles
• Will AI Replace Bookkeeping Clerks? — Administrative finance and AI

Explore all 1,016 occupation analyses on our full occupation directory.

Sources

• Anthropic. (2026). The Anthropic Labor Market Impact Report.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Information Clerks.
• O*NET OnLine. New Accounts Clerks — 43-4141.00.
• Eloundou, T., et al. (2023). GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models.

Update History

• 2026-03-30: Initial publication

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This analysis is based on data from the Anthropic Labor Market Report (2026), Eloundou et al. (2023), and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. AI-assisted analysis was used in producing this article.