Bank of America rolls out AI to advisers

Bank of America has given a new artificial intelligence tool to its 18,000 financial advisers, extending generative AI into one of the bank’s biggest client-facing workforces. (fortune.com) The rollout landed the same week Bank of America reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $30.3 billion, net income of $8.6 billion, diluted earnings per share of $1.11, and return on tangible common equity of 16.0%. (bankofamerica.com) Bank of America said it serves nearly 70 million clients, has about 59 million verified digital users, and operates roughly 3,500 financial centers and 15,000 automated teller machines in the United States. (bankofamerica.com) The adviser tool sits on top of a longer AI push built around Erica, the bank’s virtual assistant launched in 2018 inside its mobile app. Bank of America has reused that architecture across customer and employee tools instead of building each system from scratch. (fortune.com) That reuse already reached wealth management before this latest launch. Fortune reported that Bank of America introduced Erica for Employees and an adviser tool called Ask Merrill in 2020, then added products including CashPro Chat, Capital Markets Insights, and Ask Private Banking. (fortune.com) By March, the bank said clients connected with their finances about 30 billion times in 2025 through logins and alerts, up 14% from a year earlier. It said 86% of wealth management clients now use its digital channels. (bankofamerica.com) Erica handled nearly 700 million interactions from 20.6 million users in 2025, and total client interactions since launch have passed 3.2 billion, according to the bank. Bank of America said Erica crossed 3 billion interactions in August 2025 and now functions across Merrill, Benefits OnLine, CashPro, and other businesses. (bankofamerica.com 1) (bankofamerica.com 2) The bank’s technology chief, Hari Gopalkrishnan, told Fortune the company rebuilt the Erica platform in 2025 for the generative AI era while keeping it “model-agnostic,” meaning it can swap in different AI models for different jobs. (fortune.com) The new adviser rollout puts that strategy in front of clients more directly: not as a chatbot in a banking app, but as software used by human advisers preparing for meetings, finding firm information, and responding faster. Bank of America has not publicly detailed the full feature set in its own release, but Fortune described it as a new AI tool deployed across the adviser force. (fortune.com) For Bank of America, the timing ties a record quarter to a broader bet that AI can support both scale and personal service. The bank is now testing that claim with 18,000 advisers whose jobs depend on client relationships, not just back-office efficiency. (bankofamerica.com) (fortune.com)