All of the banks global teams will have access to technology tools
CIBC says that a three-country pilot of its in-house generative AI system has proven successful, leading to a global rollout.
The big six Canadian bank has been trialling its CIBC AI system know as CAI since July 2024, but only for a group of team members in Canada, US, and UK. It was designed to cut down on mundane tasks to boost productivity and the stats seem to support that.
CIBC says CAI saved team members an estimated 200,000 hours or more during the pilot by freeing them from common tasks such as summarizing documents, drafting emails, compiling research and other text-based content.
"It's been tremendous watching the uptake of CAI across our bank and how it has helped simplify routine tasks for team members, better enabling them to focus on delivering value to our clients," said Dave Gillespie, Executive Vice-President, Infrastructure, Architecture and Modernization, CIBC. "What sets CAI apart is its adaptability to the unique needs of each team, from writing to research and analysis or even light coding suggestions, CAI has had a positive impact across all lines of business."
While Gen-AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot are becoming familiar tools in businesses and households across Canada - organizations now rank AI as an investment priority alongside cybersecurity - the compliance risk for banks and other financial institutions make developing their own in-house platforms attractive.
This is especially true where AI is used for customer-focused activities. Vancouver-based communication compliance and archiving solutions firm Global Relay recently reported that 31% of financial services respondents to its global survey are using AI for communications surveillance, or plan to do so in the next 12 months.
Getting it wrong can be costly, as CIBC itself discovered last year when CIBC World Markets Corp and CIBC Private Wealth Advisors agreed to a US$12 million penalty and Canaccord Genuity agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle SEC charges for “widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their personnel to maintain and preserve electronic communications in violation of recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws.”
CAI has been built from the ground up to ensure that it meets the needs of the CIBC teams and organization, with a focus on helping staff spend more time on higher value tasks.
"It's been tremendous watching the uptake of CAI across our bank and how it has helped simplify routine tasks for team members, better enabling them to focus on delivering value to our clients," said Dave Gillespie, Executive Vice-President, Infrastructure, Architecture and Modernization, CIBC. "What sets CAI apart is its adaptability to the unique needs of each team, from writing to research and analysis or even light coding suggestions, CAI has had a positive impact across all lines of business."
Other Canadian banks have also developed Gen-AI solutions such as RBC’s Aiden. RBC has created an AI and digital innovation team within its capital markets unit, headed by Bobby Grubert as head of AI and Digital Innovation (Grubert previously worked on Aiden) and with hubs in Toronto, New York, and London.
RBC has also has partnered with Cohere, a company specializing in security and privacy-focused enterprise AI, to co-develop North for Banking.
Recently, the Ontario Securities Commission has expressed concern about the risks of AI to investor protection. It comes as a report found strong adoption of AI among Canadian businesses, which the OSC has been considering in the context of disclosures that should be made.
