Citizens announces AI-driven ‘reimagining’ of the bank

UPDATE: This article includes quotes from Citizens’ second-quarter earnings call and an interview with CEO Bruce Van Saun.

Citizens Financial Group is “reimagining” itself for the AI age, the company announced as it unveiled its second quarter earnings.

“We’ve commenced work on a project we are calling ‘Reimagining the Bank,'” CEO Bruce Van Saun said Thursday during a call with analysts “The objective is to redesign how we serve customers and run the bank, taking advantage of new technologies like [generative] AI and agentic AI.”

Van Saun said the initiative will take several years, and will be led by Citizens president Brendan Coughlin. Over the long run, Van Saun said, the project will require adopting new technologies, making “changes to our organizational model” and training employees…