Bank of America is putting $4 billion - nearly a third of its entire technology budget for the year in fact - towards new projects including AI, according to a news release Tuesday, April 8. This spending comes as the financial services behemoth has been reaping the rewards of AI and machine learning, since in 2018 it rolled out an AI-powered virtual assistant called Erica to help consumers manage various financial tasks, four years before ChatGPT was a household name. BofA says that it has enjoyed the following in its various business enterprises:

Erica for Employees, an internal AI chatbot based on Erica for customers, has more than 90% engagement by BofA’s 213,000 employees. It reduced IT calls by more than 50%             

Bank of America developers using a generative AI coding assistant experienced 20% in productivity efficiencies, Employees are saving hundreds of thousands of hours annually by using AI to prepare materials for meetings with business clients, which they can deploy to client face-to-face engagement, Customer service agents use an AI tool to provide a more personalized experience with customers while also reducing call handling time, effectively utilizing agent/customer engagement time.

According to the bank (BofA), in their first case of using it for internal operational, efficiency, and productivity, sales and trading teams are using a generative AI platform developed internally to search and summarize Bank of America research and market commentary "more quickly and efficiently.

"BofA's precept is an example of AI's impact in the financial services sector and a pragmatic case study to its peer cohort who are just beginning to initiate the same journey. Their technology financial investment is a part of a broader strategy to inject AI in all ways into their operational efficiencies and productivity of employees and client services.

The financial services organization has been rolling out AI and machine learning since the introduction of Erica, 7 years ago. Bank of America stated Erica has handled over 2.5 billion interactions and has 20 million active users. The internal version was introduced in 2020, brought a seamless deployment effort for staff during the pandemic, and progressed into different aspects of IT, helping with password resets and device activation tasks. Now, Erica distributes advice/information on many topics, from health benefits to payroll forms. The bank plans to expand Erica for Employees to deeper enablement this year, with generative AI providing information discovery regarding the bank's products and services and other topics easily.