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When asked about the biggest challenge in leading innovation at BMO over the past year, Mathew (Mat) Mehrotra, group head of Canadian personal and business banking and co-head of Canadian personal and commercial banking, said something that may seem counterintuitive in the current environment: "The temptation to apply AI everywhere before the right enablers are in place to ensure success."
At a time when companies across multiple industries are enthusiastically investing billions in AI-enabled technology, Mehrotra calls for careful consideration of its best use cases before jumping in. The focus at BMO, he said, is to solve problems that most affect clients and then apply technology where it can make the biggest impact. "That means innovating to solve challenges for clients and our business while staying focused on execution excellence," he said.
Indeed, many projects Mehrotra has helped shape at the $1.5-trillion asset bank have clients at the top of mind. BMO's Canadian digital banking program launched an updated design for the bank's online and mobile banking platforms, offering a fresh, faster experience for users. Its savings goals program allows customers to easily open a mobile banking account and set it up to track and fund their savings goals through regular transfers. Same day grace enables quick alerts to clients whose accounts are overdrawn, providing them the opportunity to fund their accounts before they are charged a fee. And improvements to the digital insights platform mean customers now receive 80% more information about their spending and cash flow than they did previously.
Mehrotra has led the agile transformation at BMO for several years and helped the bank become a leader in digital sales, growing sales by more than 250% from fiscal years 2017 to 2025, and generating $1.5 billion in cumulative revenue between FY 2020 and 2025. By enabling customers to complete more transactions digitally, BMO reduced operating costs, delivering approximately $100 million in annual savings by 2025. Overall, digital initiatives led by Mehrotra have saved BMO approximately $20 million over the past year and added $2 million in additional revenue.
Since 2018, BMO has won 45 awards for digital and AI innovation. While cautious about implementing AI without the right elements in place, Mehrotra acknowledged, "AI will transform all aspects of banking." He added, "I envision AI unlocking an incredible transformation of our client experience as we exponentially scale personalized experiences, augment our teams to have AI-powered advice-based conversations and automate routine work."
