Deutsche Bank Points to Proven Returns on AI Investments

Deutsche Bank executive Denis Roux said Thursday (June 18) that artificial intelligence (AI) is enabling the bank to cut the completion time of some tasks from two years to as little as three months, Reuters reported Thursday.

Roux, who is Deutsche Bank’s chief information officer, investment bank, told Reuters that the bank uses simpler models for routine tasks and is cautious about deploying the technology for everything.

The bank is currently developing AI tools to automate the extraction and analysis of financial data and to link external events to its portfolio to gauge its exposure, according to the report.

To manage the cost of AI, Deutsche Bank allocates tokens to engineers and allows the engineers to request more if they can demonstrate value, Roux said, per the report.

“We don’t want to slow people down and want them to keep going, but we also want to get a return,” Roux said in the report.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Financial Services Pulls Ahead in the Enterprise AI Race” found that 85% of financial services and insurance firms with at least $1 billion in annual revenue plan to increase their AI budgets over the next 12 months.

Asked what justifies their investments in AI, 65% of these firms pointed to productivity and efficiency gains, 65% highlighted strategic/competitive positioning, and 55% cited risk reduction and compliance.

“These are outcome-oriented justifications that require AI investments to demonstrate measurable returns,” the report said.

Asked about their most adopted AI tasks, 65% of financial services and insurance firms spotlighted revenue recognition and accounting close, 60% noted credit risk assessment and scoring, and 60% said sales forecasting and pipeline optimization.

“The industry’s most adopted use cases cluster in structured, auditable back-office functions: the internal operations that keep a business running but that customers never directly see,” the report said.

Nvidia said in a recently released report that nearly 90% of financial institutions are deploying or assessing AI and that 65% already use the technology.

KPMG found that 70% of banking CEOs plan to allocate 10% to 20% of their budgets to AI in the coming year. Twenty-four percent of these CEOs said the top benefit of AI adoption is enhanced cybersecurity.