Here is a comprehensive list of where each bank is at with their respective artificial intelligence strategy, providing the most recent AI developments across 50 of the largest banks in North America, Europe, and Asia, so bookmark it and use it as a reference tool.

According to the annual Evident AI Index, JPMorgan Chase is the most mature when it comes to AI with Capital One and Royal Bank of Canada following. While these North American financial institutions are leading, their European counterparts are lagging. JPMorgan Chase is at the top of the list for the second year running, which ranks based on AI talent, innovation, leadership, transparency and outcomes.

Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Citi take the next three positions, with CommBank and DBS representing the Asia Pacific region in the top 10, while Europe has UBS and ING. Canada has four banks in the top 20. European banks rank towards the middle of the index or lower, and no UK banks have made it into the top 10, while Santander leads the Southern Europeans in 21st place. Nordic banks rank in the 40s.

JPMorgan Chase

In 2023, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon revealed that the bank has more than 300 AI use cases in production, calling the technology “extraordinary and groundbreaking.” In his annual letter to shareholders, Dimon said that the “importance of implementing new technologies simply cannot be overstated.”

At the time, JPMorgan Chase had over 1000 people involved in data management, more than 900 data scientists - AI and machine learning experts who create new models - and 600 ML engineers. In addition, a 200-person AI research group is looking at the “hardest problems and new frontiers in finance,” according to Dimon.

Capital One

Capital One’s newly appointed chief scientist and head of enterprise AI, Prem Natarajan — who spent five years as a VP at Amazon, leading the Alexa AI organisation — revealed in an interview that he would endeavour to work towards generative AI and large language models (LLMs) in a responsible, thoughtful way.

Natarajan said his top priority is to continue building a “world-class” AI organisation. “We have the framework, we already have a fair number of AI and ML people. I want us to be the top destination for the top AI talent that is interested in these problems. I think that’s what will prepare us most for the future.”

Royal Bank of Canada

As explored by RBC, the bank “has collectively brought multiple AI-enabled products to market. NOMI uses data-driven insights to help retail customers better manage their finances by tracking spending, automating budgeting, suggesting opportunities for saving and forecasting future cash flow. Traders and AI scientists worked side-by-side to deliver a real-world solution through the launch of Aiden® and the subsequent launch of Aiden Arrival – using deep reinforcement learning to navigate dynamic market conditions in real time in its pursuit of improved trading results and insights for clients.”

Notably, interim head Alex LaPlante mentioned that: “We see a world where many client interactions and business decisions are enhanced by AI. We also recognize that we have a responsibility to build these technologies in a safe and ethical manner, addressing issues of fairness, bias, transparency and privacy.”

Wells Fargo

At the end of 2022, Wells Fargo Vantage was launched - a one-stop-shop for digital banking, drawing together Wells Fargo’s suite of financial products and services in a single platform, designed to meet the increasingly consumer-centric demands of corporate treasurers and SMEs through AI and ML technologies.

Speaking to Finextra about the announcement, Reetika Grewal, EVP, head of digital for commercial banking and corporate and investment bank, Wells Fargo, explored how the bank’s ‘persona-driven AI’ has come into its own. As the bank’s clients are not only diverse but very dynamic and growing at different rates, Grewal explained that the team needed to build in a modular way to suit the needs of each client.

UBS

The UBS Chief Investment Office released a note on generative AI, which explained that the industry must take a selective approach to AI exposure. “The surge in AI applications and investments has created a powerful new narrative for the broader tech sector. In July, we raised our long-term AI end-demand forecasts from 20% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during 2020–25 to 61% during 2022–27.

“As a result, we now expect global AI demand to grow from USD 28bn in 2022 to USD 300bn in 2027. Second-quarter tech results, including the reacceleration in datacenter capital spending seen at top hyperscaler companies (large-scale cloud service providers) and Nvidia’s strong guidance on AI chip delivery, suggest our USD 300bn forecast may be too conservative,” the note read.

Further, UBS concluded that: “AI is likely to prove a transformative technology in the long term, but predicting its short-term impact on share prices is by nature speculative and subject to swings in sentiment. So we retain a selective approach toward the tech sector.”

CommBank

Last week it was reported that Commonwealth Bank of Australia will make its AI and ML techniques for countering abusive transaction messages available for free, to any bank in the world. The AI model will identify digital payment transactions that include harassing, threatening or offensive messages within the payment description field. The model and source code are available through the bank’s partnership with H2O.ai on GitHub, the world’s largest platform for hosting source code.

Goldman Sachs

According to Goldman Sachs Asset Management, after “a breakthrough year for generative artificial intelligence, investors are looking for signs that new deep learning tools and techniques are filtering through to more industries. The shift from the excitement phase into the deployment phase is expected to continue in 2024, eventually helping to raise global productivity and potentially helping address challenges coming from unfavorable demographics in some countries.”

The bank continued to state that “semiconductor makers and companies that produce equipment for semiconductor manufacturing — the hardware underlying the entire AI buildout — are in focus.” The article continued to explain that “expenditure on the most advanced equipment used to produce semiconductors is growing rapidly. This is driven by both advancements in AI, which necessitate new chip designs, and the reshoring of semiconductor production by developed countries to help the resilience of their supply chains.”

ING

At Money20/20 in Amsterdam, Finextra chatted to ING’s head of corporate strategy & innovation Jeroen Plag about emerging technologies such as generative AI. Plag said that the future “is all about providing a better customer experience and whether I do that via open finance or using generative AI in our call centres. Or utilising the blockchain to tokenise mortgages and provide them in five days, rather than 60 days.”

In Plag’s view, the retail customer does not know or care what technology is being used and we need to “move away from all the terminology and focus on making sure our customers’ lives are better and easier.”

In addition to this, employees need to be trained to utilise these tools and do a better job with these technologies embedded into their day-to-day lives, but also in a secure way. “We need to regulate this. If you put quantum and generative AI together, fraudsters will get your PIN number. We need to prepare and defend ourselves for what is coming. It’s very interesting and scary at the same time.”

Citigroup

As reported by FN London, Citi chief executive Jane Fraser revealed earlier this year that the bank has been working on AI projects for the past three years and that “the risks of not embracing generative AI far outweigh the risks of engaging with it” and generative AI is being used to "drastically improve productivity" in the short-term.

However, as the article explored, Citi was among a group of banks to ban the use of ChatGPT on its trading floor.

DBS

In an interview with Jimmy Ng, group chief information officer and head of technology and operations, DBS published this year, he revealed that since “doubling down on AI/ML several years ago, DBS has developed more than 600 AI/ML models and 300 use cases which has enhanced our customer value and given us a strong competitive advantage against our traditional banking competitors and fintech rivals.”

He added: “By starting early on our AI/ML journey, DBS has progressively built up the capabilities to industrialise AI/ML at scale and transform our service delivery. These capabilities are enabled by our in-house designed solutions: ADA and ALAN.

“ADA, or Advancing DBS with AI, is an internal, self-service platform that functions as a single source of truth to ensure data governance, discoverability, quality, and security. ALAN, our award-winning AI protocol and knowledge repository, has enabled us to deploy AI at scale and speed. Taken together, ADA and ALAN allow our teams to build and deploy AI models rapidly, improving our operations and decision-making, to provide a greater level of hypersonalisation in our services to customers.”

TD Bank

The Canadian bank revealed in 2023 that the approach they take to assess the investment potential in this new frontier for technology, specifically AI, is by following “the picks and shovels approach, investing in companies that sell the tools that are a must for AI adoption. For example, advanced chip manufacturers are prime candidates due to the complexity of calculations involved and the ever-increasing size of datasets. Other options may include software companies that develop AI tools or companies that integrate AI into hardware, like wearable devices.

“Our Portfolio Managers and Analysts thoroughly analyze our portfolio holdings to determine how well companies compete in this space. Thinking through such concepts is an essential part of our function, as is investing through cycles of innovation and disruption. Continuing with that theme, aspiring investors should look beyond the hype and invest in quality companies with a technological edge and a track record of rapid innovation.”

BNP Paribas

In 2023, BNP Paribas Personal Finance UK invited fintechs and tech businesses with expertise in AI to join its Connector Series event in collaboration with SuperTech — an organisation supporting tech innovation in the West Midlands, UK. This event followed the success of BNP Paribas Personal Finance UK’s first programme with SuperTech where they implemented digital solutions to solve complex challenges around data visualisation, automated underwriting and chatbots in collaboration with fintechs.

HSBC

In the lead up to Singapore Fintech Festival, Shayan Hazir, HSBC's chief digital officer for ASEAN, considers initiatives to integrate AI into current financial infrastructure and the importance of experimentation and collaboration for operational transformation. We discuss the challenges in data orchestration, responsible implementation, public utilities and identify future opportunities in this space. Watch the FinextraTV interview here.

BNY Mellon

BNY Mellon invested €8 million into a digital R&D hub in Dublin, that will drive innovation in AI and data analytics. Supported by IDA Ireland, the investment will lead to a more than doubling of the digital team in Dublin and the initial creation of 30 specialist jobs by the end of 2025. The US bank is also seeking to recruit a range of AI and technology specialists, including experienced data scientists, and product and design thinking specialists.

Bank of America

In 2022, Bank of America's AI-powered chatbot, Erica, passed the one billion client interactions mark, helping nearly 32 million customers since launching in 2018. At launch, the virtual assistant helped users with a host of simple transactions such as money transfers and balance enquiries. It has since added more sophisticated features, such as helping customers review their finances and cut recurring subscription charges, know when they’ve received a merchant refund, or have duplicate charges.

Bank of Montreal

BMO released a statement on how their “digital first model uses speed and scale to drive progress for our customers, unlock the power of our people and deliver loyalty, growth and efficiency. This includes the use of AI with a focus on application-centric innovation, like the use of natural language models, cashflow forecasting and chatbots to drive real business outcomes. These powerful tools help employees perform their roles with greater speed, scale and precision, and provide customers with insights that power real financial progress.”

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management announced this year that the bank will use OpenAI's GPT-4 to deliver content and insights into the hands of financial advisors. The bank is one of a handful of launch organisations for GPT-4, the fourth multimodal large language model from OpenAI. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management will use the technology to access, process and synthesise content to assimilate its own range of intellectual capital in the form of insights into companies, sectors, asset classes, capital markets, and regions around the world.

Scotiabank

As revealed in an interview with CIO.com’s chief data and analytics officer Grace Lee at the Bank of Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s Big Five banks, is using data, analytics, and AI to better understand and serve customers. Lee said: “Where we’ve seen other organizations sometimes fail to capture the benefits of AI and machine learning is that it doesn’t necessarily always result in practical outcomes. So, you’ll find that sometimes we call it ‘blue-collar’ AI or analytics, but it’s really around making sure that we see the [AI] models through all the way from inception to [deployment into] production.”

NatWest

NatWest has added generative AI capabilities to its chatbot Cora, giving the intelligent digital assistant a more human-like conversational interface with customers. The UK bank has collaborated with IBM using AI and data platform watsonx to create an evolved version of the chatbot capable of providing more personalised support for customers.

Société Générale

To better serve their customers, “all of Société Générale’s businesses are constantly working to ramp up their digital transformation, in particular by adopting data processing and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies,” according to the bank. The statement continued: “Today, AI is fully incorporated in all Group businesses, which have now achieved a certain maturity in this area. Société Générale has identified 130 AI technology use cases in the fields of customer service or operational efficiency.”

Santander

Banco Santander teamed up with Microsoft and the Oxentia Foundation on a global challenge for entrepreneurs using AI to make a “positive impact on society.” Startups and scaleups from Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the US, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Poland, the UK and Uruguay were invited to apply for the challenge.

Barclays

According to Helena Sans, national head of technology, media and telecoms, Barclays has “seen the capability and power of AI rapidly advance in the past few months, and with it a heightened global concern with regards to its use and potential application. Akin to the industrial and digital revolution, many are now citing the dawn of the AI revolution, leading to significant opportunities as well as opening a door to many unchartered risks. Whilst discussions are escalating across government and industry to address the need for appropriate regulation and guard rails.”

Standard Chartered

In an article published in the South China Morning Post, Standard Chartered outlined Alson Ho, head of wealth management’s view: “Technology-enabled wealth advisory services will be a major trend in the future. Overall, digital technology is making Hong Kong affluent investors more confident in their investments and more flexible about using AI and expert analysis.” The article concluded by saying that as “AI technology advances, it has become more accessible, convenient and practicable for use in different areas of finance. Today we are seeing only a glimpse of what the technology could eventually do to significantly improve banking and wealth advisory services.”

ABN AMRO

Annerie Vreugdenhil, chief commercial officer, personal and business banking, ABN Amro, took to the stage to reveal that the Dutch bank is scaling up ChatGPT in its call centres, expanding the technology from 20 to 200 employees as part of the pilot. As reported by FSTech, “traditionally, agents at the bank have taken notes during a customer call to produce a summary afterwards. The bank is now starting to use ChatGPT to create these summaries, with the agents simply checking they are accurate afterwards.”

Intesa Sanpaolo

Intesa Sanpaolo is continuing its process of adopting innovative artificial intelligence solutions, in line with the objectives of the Group's digital transformation programme – guided by CEO Carlo Messina – set out in the 2022-2025 Business Plan. The new project aims to digitalise and evolve its operating model for setting the Group's Regulatory Agenda, and thus the bank became the first European bank to use artificial intelligence for regulatory analysis.

BBVA

BBVA announced the launch of a unit to further strengthen the bank’s financial crime prevention structure, comprised of 800 people within the BBVA group. At the time of the announcement, the bank stated that technology and data will play a key role in this new unit, and noted the use of advanced analytical models and AI, as well deepening their knowledge of the transaction behaviour of their customers.

Crédit Agricole

Back in 2020, speaking to The Banker, Sébastien Piednoir revealed that Crédit Agricole’s corporate and investment banking unit has put AI technologies at the heart of its risk and compliance functions. Piednoir worked on four projects using AI to accelerate the ability to read information, such as annual reports, and monitor news, as well as transforming unstructured data into structured data. Across these projects, his main aims were to alleviate team pressure and boost productivity, while increasing the security level.

Lloyds Banking Group

Abhijit Akerkar, Lloyds Banking speaks to Hannah Wallace, Finextra about the areas AI is disrupting most and how banks should prioritise the use cases, how AI will transform customer experience and what the biggest challenges in generating value from AI are. Watch the interview here.

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank partnered with NVIDIA to accelerate the use of AI in financial services. Under the deal, Deutsche Bank will use NVIDIA's AI Enterprise, an end-to-end software suite that can run in the cloud or in the data centre. The partners plan to develop applications across the bank's business, with an initial focus on three use cases: risk model development, high-performance computing, and the creation of a branded virtual avatar.

Truist Bank

At the end of 2022, Truist Financial Corporation announced the launch of Truist Assist in its mobile banking app and online banking platform for personal banking (retail and wealth) clients. This AI-enhanced virtual assistant is the bank's example of its T3, or technology-plus-touch-equals-trust strategy, which combines innovative technology with personalised human touch to heighten client satisfaction and trust. The digital assistant leverages natural-language processing (NLP) and natural-language understanding (NLU) to help answer clients' questions and provide financial information in digital channels.

Rabobank

This year, after leveraging Genesys Cloud CX’s AI and automation capabilities, Rabobank now has the technical foundation to orchestrate seamless customer and employee experiences across self and human assisted interactions.

Raiffeisen Bank Intl

Raiffeisen, a leading Swiss retail bank, wanted to appeal to younger customers, so using Rasa, the bank developed an AI assistant to handle longer conversations and train non-technical team members. The product team used fast iteration cycles to learn from real user data and to improve AI accuracy.

Westpac

Australian lender Westpac has enlisted local AI firm Rich Data Co (RDC) to make its business lending decisions faster and simpler. Westpac's new capabilities include a digital application process, smarter technology that enables faster decisions for borrowers and an expanded cash flow offering that allows complex businesses access to flexible, unsecured funding.

US Bank

As reported by Fintech Futures, US Bank revealed that they are on the search for an automation and process transformation leader as the bank looks to leverage AI to optimise its operations.

NAB

NAB is optimistic about AI. According to a statement released by the bank, “NAB is laying the groundwork for a significant transformation through artificial intelligence after chief executive Ross McEwan and his leadership team returned from briefings in the US with high-level tech leaders at Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and consultancy firms Bain and Accenture.”

PNC Financial

In a blog post published on Finextra, Infosys’ Akshay Berry explored how PNC Financial uses Upstart, a leading AI-based lending solution, to directly offering loans using its machine learning algorithm. “The focus is on the segment of population with low credit history. The firm evaluates the years of credit, FICO credit scores, education background, field of study and job history to understand their creditworthiness and grant loans accordingly. US bank PNC Financial uses the system to automate approvals for certain loan types. The bank combines prescriptive business rules with predictive data modelling to ascertain customer eligibility for credit.”

KBC

In 2022, Belgian bank KBC launched its own fintech to sell the AI applications it has developed to third parties. Called Discai, the separate legal entity intended to focus on selling AI-based applications to business-to-business firms, with the first offering being an anti-money laundering tool.

ANZ

ANZ invested in a new security capability designed to detect mule accounts being used to receive funds from scam victims and other criminal activities. An extension of the bank's behavioural biometrics technology, the new tool uses AI and machine learning to sniff out potential money mules and suspect accounts.

State Street

According to Aman Thind, chief technology officer of State Street Alpha, the bank is “applying AI and ML across a number of use cases, from building smarter portfolios to improving data quality and optimizing manual, error-prone middle-office workflows.”

CaixaBank

CaixaBank, together with another 16 European companies, has created the GREEN.DAT.AI European research consortium, which aims to develop new AI-based services that provide a more sustainable data analysis. Among the possible applications of this consortium's developments are the optimisation of energy efficiency in big data usage and the utilisation of explainable AI in fraud detection and prevention.

CIBC

Robertson Velez, portfolio manager, CIBC Asset Management, believes that: “Technology disruption has been driving productivity for the past several decades, doubling computational power roughly every two years. Technological disruption happens because the underlying technologies have progressed to the point where it becomes practical, and in some cases inevitable. Second, people often assume disruption is a function of how compelling a new technology is, but history suggests it’s more about how much friction is in the path of customer adoption. Generative AI doesn’t require a drastic change in behaviour, other than to ask questions. This suggests low friction and a long runway for sustainable growth.”

Commerzbank

Commerzbank has launched a banking avatar, a virtual assistant in form of a digitalised person that interacts with customers in natural language. Customers can ask their virtual assistant questions, get general information as well as personalised advice.

UniCredit

Over the course of 2022, MDOTM has supported UniCredit by integrating its proprietary AI model within the group’s investment process.

Danske Bank

Earlier this year, Infosys announced that it has signed a strategic collaboration with Danske Bank to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation initiatives with AI, providing better customer experiences and operational excellence, as reported by Technology Magazine.

Crédit Mutuel

According to the bank’s website, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale “uses innovative solutions, including cognitive solutions and optical character recognition, and is further enhancing ways to analyze data and put it to good use. It is the only French company in which 35,000 employees use artificial intelligence every day, from email analyzers to virtual assistants (for property and casualty insurance, savings, health, provident insurance, consumer credit, etc.).”

Groupe BPCE

Groupe BPCE hopes to that their “innovative capacity should now allow us to enter a new era defined by data and artificial intelligence: an innovative, ethical and secure use of data to assist our customer advisors, to enhance relationships with their customers and, more generally, to serve all the business activities of banking and insurance. Innovation is key to enabling us to provide our customers with even better support at key moments in their lives.”

Charles Schwab

As suggested on the Charles Schwab website, “AI holds the potential to transform employment, drive faster productivity growth, and drive gains for investors.”

Nordea

Back in 2021, Nordea’s view on AI was one of scepticism, but forward-looking. “The potential of AI is incredibly exciting,” Mattias Fras, head of AI Hub at Nordea, explained. “For example, Nordea has implemented AI to help with the handling of disability claims. The AI handles two-thirds of cases, giving human staff the chance to give extra time and attention to those that need it.”

Citizens Financial

As reported by Bank Automation News, “Citizens Bank aims to retrain its workforce as it explores use cases of generative AI within contact center systems, advising and coding.”

First Citizens

First Citizens is using OCR, AI, ML and predictive analysis to accelerate business outcomes and auto-pilot business process, according to this event held earlier this year.