- key insights: Some banks named American Banker’s Best Banks to Work for in 2025 are leveraging AI to augment their workforces.
- what is the problem: The decision to use AI is very bank specific. Some people accept it. Others are more cautious.
- Future outlook: Banks leveraging AI say they are saving employees time on certain tasks.
Artificial intelligence is permeating every industry, including banking.
Banks appear to be using AI to augment their workforces rather than replace them, said Indranil Bandyopadhyay, principal analyst at Forrester.
“AI-powered tools are automating mundane, repetitive tasks like data entry, compliance checks, and summarizing long reports, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic, high-value work that requires human judgment and empathy,” Bandyopadhyay said.
He argues that this change is reducing employee burnout and increasing job satisfaction, as AI assistants empower bank employees by providing them with instant access to information and real-time support.
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Let’s take a look at the efforts of four companies.
bank of potomac
Charles Town, West Virginia-based Potomac Bank used AI to analyze the results of American Banker’s Best Banks to Work for survey, said Alice Frazier, president and CEO.
“As we were discussing the results in our senior leadership meeting, we thought that AI might help us decipher the results into some focus areas,” Frazier said in an interview.
The bank’s chief information officer loaded a spreadsheet containing the 2023 and 2024 survey results into Microsoft Co-Pilot and asked about year-over-year changes.
Frazier recalled a meeting where bank executives quickly received a summary of the AI-generated findings.
“Literally within minutes, we had answers and summaries that would have taken an HR director hours to complete,” Frazier said. “This allowed us to move forward with developing action steps without having to wait for another meeting.”
Bank management then used that information to prepare an anonymous survey of employees and host focus groups to gain further insight.
“This saves us hours of resource time and allows us to focus on what matters,” Frazier said.
Potomac Bank, until recently known as Charles Town Bank, is also evaluating several software tools to update and manage its standard operating procedures. Currently, all of the bank’s standard operating procedures are stored within Microsoft Word documents, each in its own document.
“It takes a tremendous amount of research time to find answers about how employees do something, and it’s just as tedious to update,” Frazier says.
Frazier said the bank aims to develop tools that can help with things like creating and storing standard operating procedures. “We believe that onboarding and training new teammates using this tool will be greatly improved,” she added.
On the sales side, the bank’s sales development leaders used AI to create sales, service, and product training materials.
Frazier also said that for the past two years, she herself has been using AI to write the bank’s annual shareholder letter. “I can’t tell you how much time it has saved me,” she said.
capital bank
Rockville, Md.-based Capital Bank has hired an AI leader within its technology organization and continues to add AI resources within its strategic organization, CEO Ed Barry said.
The bank built an AI-powered intranet called Capital Bank GPT. Barry explained that this is essentially the bank’s own AI tool “within its four walls.”
“We’ve essentially been piloting the Capital Bank AI environment using Microsoft Copilot products,” the CEO told American Banker. “So now we have all these different databases, policies, sources and we put AI on top of that.”
“So if you are an employee and you want to ask, ‘What is our policy on family leave?’ You can type that in and instead of trying to find the policy, it will automatically search and tell you,” he said.
The AI will collect all of the bank’s internal data sources, policies and board-approved procedures to “answer any questions about the internal workings of Capital Bank,” Barry said.
Other features Capital Bank will roll out by the end of the year are AI tools to help build custom training programs and externally sourced training databases, allowing employees to “build their own AI-driven presentations and training programs around specific topics that are relevant to them,” Barry said.
ledyard national bank
At Ledyard National Bank, which operates in Vermont and New Hampshire, the company’s introduction to AI has been described by President and CEO Josephine Moran as “a very thoughtful process.”
Ledyard has created an AI policy and an AI task force. Moran said the initial focus will be on leveraging AI to determine things like how banks can increase efficiency, improve workflows and generally make it “easier” for employees to “get their jobs done.”
The bank considered several different back-office solutions, but ultimately decided to upgrade its Microsoft CoPilot subscription to gain additional licenses. On the other hand, employees cannot use ChatGPT.
“We’ve blocked them all at our bank,” Moran said, explaining that he believes ChatGPT poses a security issue. Additionally, Ledyard already uses the Microsoft product suite, which makes it easier for CoPilot to leverage bank procedures and policies.
The bank is in the process of creating a “holistic workflow” for the use of CoPilot to ensure employees have access to all of the bank’s policies, procedures and standards.
Learn more about American Banker’s 2025 Best Banks to Work for.
“This is going to create significant efficiencies for everyone,” Moran told American Banker. “And once we have everything together and we can monitor it and know exactly how effective it is, then we can start creating other things.”
Layard is also considering options for AI-based note-taking tools with built-in compliance features. This allows wealth advisors, for example, to meet with clients and “be fully involved in the conversation without having to worry about taking notes,” he said.
bank plus
Mississippi-based BankPlus is “embracing” AI as a practical tool to “improve” the way its employees work, communicate and serve customers, President and CEO Jack Webb said.
Earlier this year, BankPlus introduced an AI-enabled communications platform that Webb said has “transformed” the way banks provide inside information.
“Employees absorb content in different ways. Some prefer audio, others prefer visuals or text,” Webb told American Banker. “And now, thanks to AI, our communications team can create one message and seamlessly transform it into a podcast, animated slideshow, or enhanced document. This is personalization at scale.”
Webb is particularly excited about BankPlus’ newly launched AI-powered generative communication portal that replaces a traditional intranet.
Learn more about banking and how we use AI.
Webb said the intranet was “a labyrinth of disconnected information silos.”
“Employees across departments now have instant access to accurate, up-to-date information that previously took a significant amount of time to find, if at all.” “This change in technology is saving time, increasing confidence, and promoting a more connected workplace.”
Finally, BankPlus has just deployed a predictive AI module within its internal customer service and ticketing systems.
“This allows us to anticipate employee needs and resolve issues faster, freeing up our teams to focus on what matters most: helping our customers,” said Webb.
