RBC’s proprietary AI foundation model for financial services aims to enhance personalized client experience

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) today announced a significant leap forward in personalized financial services with the unveiling of its proprietary AI foundation model, ATOM (Asynchronous Temporal Model). Developed by RBC’s research institute, RBC Borealis, ATOM is set to transform the client experience by leveraging deep financial expertise derived from billions of client transactions, all within a robust and responsible AI framework.

ATOM, securely trained on a vast scale of financial datasets, provides RBC with an unprecedented breadth of knowledge in financial services. This powerful foundation model, integrated within RBC’s Lumina data platform, can process up to 10 billion transactions per minute, enabling AI scientists to generate unique insights and innovative solutions.

“ATOM represents the future of banking at RBC,” stated Foteini Agrafioti, SVP and Chief Science Officer, RBC. “It helps to personalize products and services at an individual level and enables us to more deeply understand our clients’ individual circumstances. As such, we will be able to tailor our services for each client and fully utilize the breadth and insights of RBC data while maintaining privacy and security.”

The model, first deployed in 2023, is already enhancing several RBC products and services, top to a more individualized and tailored client experience. A prime example is the enhancement of credit adjudication. ATOM’s advanced modeling allows RBC to better assess client needs and financial capacity, ensuring responsible lending and potentially extending credit to clients with less traditional credit history, such as newcomers, who might be disadvantaged by conventional models.

Gopala Narayanan, SVP, Chief Risk Officer, Personal Banking, RBC, highlighted the benefits: “Applying AI to credit adjudication has provided an opportunity to evolve decisioning to ensure the best customer outcomes and increased levels of personalization in a way that wouldn’t be possible with traditional adjudication models and processes.”

Beyond credit, ATOM is also being utilized to streamline offerings and recommendations in programs like Avion Rewards, top to a significant lift in redemption conversion and increased benefit adoption. This emphasizes RBC’s commitment to leveraging AI for personalized and impactful client interactions.

This initiative is a testament to RBC’s decade-long investment in AI talent and infrastructure, solidifying its reputation as a leader in this transformative technology. Bruce Ross, Group Head, Technology & Operations, RBC, affirmed, “RBC believes that AI has the ability to change what a bank is capable of. Now we can pull the right details and insights to understand our clients’ needs and provide them with an exceptional experience.”

With ATOM at its core, RBC aims to achieve $700 million to $1 billion in enterprise value from AI-driven benefits by 2027, underscoring its strategic vision to redefine banking through intelligent, client-centric solutions.