Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Wells Fargo & Company CEO Charlie Scharf, and Northrop Grumman Chairman and CEO Kathy Worden speak at the October 15, 2025 Invest in America Forum.
Aaron Cramage | CNBC
wells fargo CEO Charlie Scharf and pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Wednesday sounded the alarm about the U.S. potentially losing its competitive edge against China, but said artificial intelligence could help the U.S. maintain its lead.
Speaking at CNBC’s inaugural U.S. Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., both executives said that while the United States still leads in many areas, it is losing ground to China due to inconsistent policies and lack of investment. They say AI poses both risks and benefits to the U.S. economy.
Schaaf said AI will likely reduce the size of the workforce, but increase productivity.
“There will definitely be fewer people,” Schaaf said. “If you look at the tools we’ve put in place for people who code, we’re seeing coders become 20%, 30%, 40% more capable. We haven’t reduced headcount by 20%, 30%, or 40%. In fact, we’re doing more than we would otherwise be able to do.”
Wells Fargo’s major banks, including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, are already hiring fewer people due to advances in AI.
Schaaf also said the financial sector is poised for major regulatory changes despite continued political gridlock in Washington.
“Ultimately, we expect capital and liquidity requirements to change significantly,” he said. “We hope to see changes that will allow people in the industry, not just the big and midsize banks, but also the small banks, to do more in these (local) communities.”
Meanwhile, Bourla expressed concern about China’s growing strength in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, pointing to a surge in research and development spending, regulatory reforms and a national strategy focused on life sciences.
“They (China) filed more patents this year than the United States,” Bourla said. “We’ve never had that in our history. Five years ago, the difference was 90% to 10%. … The difference is closing, but if we don’t work together, they’re probably going to be better than us.”
Bourla called on the United States to shift its focus from slowing China’s progress to increasing its own productivity and innovation.
“We spend more time thinking about how to slow down China than we do about how to be better than China,” Bourla said. “We need regulatory changes here. We also need stability. Tariffs and pricing haven’t helped.”
Pfizer recently agreed to a drug pricing agreement with the Trump administration as part of a broader effort to remove longstanding uncertainties around pricing, Medicaid reimbursement, and distribution. As part of the agreement, Pfizer secured a three-year exemption from drug-specific tariffs in exchange for additional investment in U.S. manufacturing.
“The uncertainty of tariffs and significant revisions to U.S. pricing — this agreement allows us to remove both uncertainties,” Bourla said on Wednesday.
He also called artificial intelligence the next frontier in medicine and predicted that it would revolutionize drug discovery by dramatically accelerating the timeline for finding treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
“We’ve been trying to find a cure for years… AI makes it possible,” Bourla said.
