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Bobby Grubert, who stepped into his role as head of AI and Digital Innovation in May 2025, sees RBC Capital Markets at an "inflection point" where AI is shifting from experimental tool to an embedded collaborator.
He took on the mandate and now oversees a $19.8 million budget, amid significant shifts at RBC, including the launch of an enterprise-wide AI group and a decision to move AI to the center of its capital markets strategy.
Grubert has spent nearly 30 years at the bank, starting as an energy trader in 1996 and rising through multiple senior roles.
RBC launched
"Over that ten-year history, our partnership with Borealis has been central to driving client and commercial outcomes across the firm. Together, we co-invented Aiden, which has become the foundation of our generative AI capabilities in Capital Markets," he said.
Still, given the latest advances and fast industrywide adoption, Grubert believes RBC is moving from AI as a tool to AI as a collaborator.
"We're at an inflection point where AI is moving from helping us do things faster to fundamentally reimagining how our business works," he said.
The new AI group announced by CEO Dave McKay serves as an enterprise hub and accelerator, while Grubert's AI and Digital Innovation team operates as a center of expertise within Capital Markets.
"We're a cross-functional group of over 20 people spanning engineering, product, strategy, and governance that operates with the speed of a startup and the rigor of a regulated institution," Grubert said. The team works closely with the AI group, Borealis AI and their outside technology partners.
Aiden, the AI platform co-invented with Borealis AI, is at the center of that strategy. RBC capital markets has rolled out Aiden tools to more than 8,000 employees across the division, evolving AI from a niche product into a defining feature of how bankers, salespeople, traders and operations staff work every day.
RBC's strategic partnerships include firms like NVIDIA, Databricks, Cohere and Anthropic, which are further extending Aiden's reach.
Scaling AI at a company with a decade of experience in AI and machine learning is nonetheless all about people.
"The biggest learning overall: Speed of implementation matters less than depth of understanding," Grubert said. "The biggest opportunity is the democratization of expertise, so junior team members can contribute at a higher level sooner, while senior professionals focus on the judgment-intensive work where they add the most value for clients."
