Capital One Financial Corp and Royal Bank of Canada retained their second and third places, according to the Evident AI Index that was published on Tuesday. Commonwealth Bank of Australia stayed in fourth position as the only Asia-Pacific lender in the top 10, while UBS Group AG, at sixth place, is the sole European bank in the top leagues. Meanwhile, DBS Group Holdings Ltd, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, ranked 25th, the index showed. 

The Evident AI Index seeks to show how global lenders are turning heavy AI spending into results, at a time when banks are facing pressure to justify record tech budgets and concerns brew over whether AI will cost jobs. Lenders that can’t show the technology generates returns risk seeing their AI programs stall, Evident said. 

“Roles are changing, and some are not being backfilled, but the banks at the top of our Index are growing, and growing headcount,” Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Evident’s co-founder and co-chief executive officer, said in a statement. “This could be the start of the largest net job creation we have seen in decades.”

Across the 50 banks assessed, AI capabilities improved almost three times faster over the past year than the average across the previous three years, the fastest pace since the index began in 2023. 

The leading banks in AI are using productivity gains to grow their business as well as drive efficiencies, Evident said. An example it cites is Wells Fargo & Co training AI agents on 15 years of loan decisions so the process can be automated, with underwriters making the final call. 

Banks are adding AI talent with a focus on enabling people who use the tool, according to Evident, noting that JPMorgan, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Royal Bank of Canada are the top hirers. 

These so-called AI enablement roles, which accelerate deployment of the tech and redesign workflows, grew 21% over the past year across the 50 banks, the fastest of any AI job category. Data engineering roles fell 3%, while other roles like AI development and AI software implementation grew much slower, the Evident report shows. 

The index scores the institutions based on their AI talent, research and patent activity, leadership communications and transparency around AI deployment. For JPMorgan, this is the bank’s fifth straight year at the top. 

Uploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy