Investing.com -- Standard Chartered Plc plans to cut more than 15% of its support staff by 2030 through increased use of artificial intelligence to streamline operations, with CEO Bill Winters saying the bank is replacing "lower-value human capital" with technology.

The bank unveiled the plan on Tuesday, affecting a portion of the roughly 52,000 people employed in support roles at the end of last year across India, China, Poland, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Winters said affected staff would receive "good clear notice" ahead of time. He described the move as an investment shift rather than cost-cutting.

"We don't have job losses, but we do have job role reductions in favor of the machines, and that will accelerate as we go forward into AI," Winters said at a briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

The bank's announcement reflects a broader trend among financial institutions openly acknowledging automation's impact on employment. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon compared AI's disruptive potential to the invention of the steam engine last year, stating the bank's annual savings from the technology now equal its yearly AI expenditures.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President and Chief Operating Officer John Waldron recently described portions of the firm's traditional operations as a "human assembly line" ready for automation.

A Pew Research Center study found that half of adults in the US report being more concerned than excited about AI's growth.