European banks have beaten many of their US counterparts on profitability during the past two years, riding the higher interest-rate wave. But when it comes to adopting artificial intelligence (AI) – the megatrend emerging over the same period since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 – European banks fall behind once again.
Speaking to Euromoney, leaders responsible for deploying AI in European banks agree that US banks have gained a head start. The lag shows in the latest Evident AI Index of AI adoption across 50 of the largest banks globally, published on Thursday. Only two European banks – HSBC and UBS – were in the top 10, and none was in the top five. Australia’s CommBank was fifth. The rest were all US or Canadian banks.
Nevertheless, European banks are trying to close the gap on AI adoption, including the sort of generative AI used by ChatGPT.
Bahadir Yilmaz, ING’s chief analytics officer, says generative AI will be vital for improving the bank’s customer satisfaction, boosting revenues and improving efficiency. “The impact will be sizeable, but not in the short term,” he says.
