- Key insight: Royal Bank of Canada is betting that AI implementation will drive much of its future growth.
- Expert quote: "There isn't a part of our business that isn't being impacted by AI." — CEO Dave McKay
- Forward look: Executives expect AI investments to generate between 700 million and 1 billion Canadian dollars of revenue and cost savings by 2027.
A year ago, Royal Bank of Canada laid out a three-year strategy to boost revenues and add clients, which hinged largely on its ability to leverage data and AI capabilities.
Twelve months later, executives say the Toronto-based bank is achieving its goals and outpacing the competition as it introduces AI across different parts of the company. That includes not only RBC's investment bank, but also consumer and commercial banking.
"I think we're right on track, and in more areas than not, ahead of where we thought we'd be," CEO Dave McKay said last week at an RBC-hosted industry conference. "We remain incredibly excited about the impact on our internal operations and on … our direct-to-consumer capability," from capital markets to consumer and commercial banking to call centers.
"There isn't a part of our business that's not being impacted by AI," he added.
RBC, which spends more than 5 billion Canadian dollars a year on technology, has invested in AI for more than a decade. It maintains a dedicated AI research center called RBC Borealis. When the center opened around 2016, it focused on how to use machine learning in finance.
With the help of Borealis' architects, engineers and scientists, RBC has rolled out products such as Lumina, an enterprise data and AI platform, and Aiden, an electronic trading platform that uses deep reinforcement learning.
In May 2025, amid RBC's broader embrace of AI, the company's capital markets unit created a new AI and digital innovation team and appointed Lindsay Patrick as chief strategy and innovation officer. Bobby Grubert, who worked on the rollout of Aiden, was promoted to head of AI and digital innovation, reporting to Patrick.
Grubert told American Banker that inside RBC's investment bank, the use of AI among research analysts is gaining traction, allowing them to cover more companies. Collectively, RBC analysts now cover about 1,700 firms, up from approximately 1,500 in 2023, and the goal is 2,500, he said.
As for rolling more AI tools out across different parts of the bank, there's lots of room for expansion, even as more employees are adopting the technology, Grubert said.
"We're at the beginning of the beginning," he said. "It's literally just starting."
RBC's investments have not gone unnoticed. Among 50 global banks, it has ranked in the top three on the Evident AI Index for four straight years. The index measures financial institutions' maturity in the AI space by assessing AI-related talent, innovation, leadership and transparency.
RBC, which is Canada's largest bank by asset size, came in third on the 2025 list, behind JPMorganChase and Capital One Financial.
Among Canadian banks, RBC is one of three "potential winners from AI," according to John Aiken, an analyst at Jefferies Research. In a research note published last week, Aiken wrote that he "firmly believe[s] that [RBC] is in the lead in AI implementation, based on the amount of dollars and effort it has expended on the front as well as its experience as an early adopter."
The Toronto-Dominion Bank, which operates TD Bank in the U.S., is another potential winner, Aiken wrote. That's partly due to its "rapid deployment of agentic AI within back-end operations" as it looks to reduce expenses by CAD $2 billion to CAD $2.5 billion, Aiken said.
TD has placed a dollar value on AI, saying it expects to realize CAD $500 million in annualized cost savings and another CAD $500 million in annualized revenues.
At RBC, executives expect the company's AI investments to generate between CAD $700 million and CAD $1 billion of revenue and cost savings by 2027.
Last month, RBC took another step in its embrace of artificial intelligence by announcing the creation of the AI Group. The new team, which the bank describes as an AI accelerator, focuses on leveraging the bank's AI capabilities companywide.
The team is being led by Bruce Ross, who spent 12 years as RBC's group head for technology and operations. He will continue to report directly to McKay.
"I really felt I needed a senior leader to be on this 24/7, pushing the organization forward [and] helping the organization understand and execute with excellence," McKay said.
"It's that important, because it impacts everything you do, from how you think about the overall cash flow of your business and how you think about your customers, to how you think about other potential opportunities in the marketplace."
