Rick Wurster interview on CNBC

Sept. 30, 2026

Rick Wurster: AI is good for economics. First, there's more investors being created in our country. Second, they're more engaged. They feel more confident taking decisions. So we've seen our daily average trading go up. We've also seen more people come into wealth management because of all the information out there. They want someone to help them sort through it all, and they want someone to sit by their side, and they value a personal interaction as well. So that's helping drive our economics.

And then finally, on cash, the idea that we have all this lazy cash sitting around at Schwab—

Sara Eisen: Idle cash. Idle cash.

Rick Wurster: —is incredibly misplaced. We have $3.5 trillion of cash movement a month, paychecks coming in, dividends being placed in accounts, interest being earned, stocks being purchased, and the like. We have $400 billion of client cash out of $3.5 trillion of cash that's moving in a particular month. So that's two to three days of activity that clients have sitting in their cash account. And what we've seen since clients have begun to use AI on our platform in a meaningful way, which has been taking place for a while now, we've actually seen the people that most intensively use AI hold more cash than those that don't use AI.

Forward-Looking Statements

This interview contains forward-looking statements relating to client engagement; business growth; and artificial intelligence capabilities and related impacts, opportunities and risks for the business. These forward-looking statements reflect management’s expectations as of the date hereof. Achievement of these expectations and objectives is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Important factors that may cause such differences are described in the company’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, which have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are available on the company’s website (https://www.aboutschwab.com/financial-reports) and on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website (https://www.sec.gov). The company makes no commitment to update any forward-looking statements. 

(1026-F11S)

Rick Wurster: More pleased to bring it to clients. Beginning in October, it will allow clients to find information, do basic tasks, and will be the foundation of a capability that I expect to be the front door for how people interact with us over time.

Sara Eisen: So, some might wonder if this is a response to Muse, for instance, where that came out, it was explosive. Everyone's using it and wondering if they can do this, this kind of stuff for people with their own Schwab accounts.

Rick Wurster: So we'll provide two ways for clients to use AI at Schwab. One will be via Charley, which will be our preferred path. It goes out to a constellation of LLMs, finds the right LLM to answer that client question or conduct that activity. We also will allow clients to bring their own LLM to Schwab, but we'll do it through an MCP server that will control that activity and keep it safe and secure.

Carl Quintanilla: Is this a big – is this a heavy lift from the tech standpoint, from the engineering standpoint?

Rick Wurster: Absolutely. I mean, we've created an optimizer that goes out, finds the best LLM for that client question, brings it to the client in a safe and secure way. And given the trust and the amount of wealth that we have on the platform, the number one thing we care about is doing this in a very safe and secure way. And so a lot of thought has gone into this.

Carl Quintanilla: What about the perceived risk of elevated churn, or the ability to just move your money into various vendors with more ease on the consumer's part?

Rick Wurster: Well, I think what we have stood for is the breadth of our capabilities. There's a bull market for convenience in our country. People come to Schwab because they can do their investing, they can do their active trading, they can have access to wealth management, lending, banking, all of those capabilities. And Charley is going to make their life only easier. And I think this is — Schwab is the place to live your financial life, have it be easy, and get the answers, and take the actions that you need to take.

Charley may provide inaccurate or incomplete results. Users should verify all information using the provided links before relying on it and check any changes to their accounts have been completed as intended. We use third party AI providers, consistent with our Privacy Notices, to process inputs as clients interact with the service, only as needed to provide the service. Interactions with Charley may be recorded and monitored by us and our third party service providers for quality assurance and service improvement purposes. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact us at 1-800-435-4000.

Forward-Looking Statements

This interview contains forward-looking statements relating to client engagement; business growth; and artificial intelligence capabilities and related impacts, opportunities and risks for the business. These forward-looking statements reflect management’s expectations as of the date hereof. Achievement of these expectations and objectives is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Important factors that may cause such differences are described in the company’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, which have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are available on the company’s website (https://www.aboutschwab.com/financial-reports) and on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website (https://www.sec.gov). The company makes no commitment to update any forward-looking statements.

(1026-FZ4G)