Royal Bank of Canada placed third, TD Bank sixth and Bank of Montreal was ninth in intelligence firm Evident’s AI innovation study, released Tuesday. Six of the other financial institutions in the top 10 are headquartered in the U.S. (The Logic)

Talking point: While RBC also ranked third on Evident’s overall AI maturity index, released in November, TD and BMO placed higher on the innovation metric in its latest study. RBC’s prominence stems from its in-house Borealis research lab, one of the earlier ones established by a major Canadian firm. It published 10 per cent of the 1,062 papers the top 50 banks put out between 2018 and 2022. It’s also patented many of its innovations. TD’s research output was also well regarded by the ranking. BMO, meanwhile, was buoyed by the strength of its patent portfolio, with its IP receiving 2.4 times as many citations from other filers as the index average.