TD Bank unveiled a slate of new artificial intelligence initiatives on Wednesday, including a chatbot developed in-house that answers questions from customer service representatives about the bank’s policies and procedures.

Spotlight on AI: The bank made the announcements at its annual tech and innovation day in downtown Toronto. TD highlighted AI tech developed by Layer 6, a small Toronto AI startup co-founded by Radical Ventures managing partner Jordan Jacobs that TD acquired in 2018 and grew to a team of 200. Along with the customer service assistant, the bank introduced AI models that can make decisions on whether to grant mortgage pre-approvals and term life insurance in seconds.

Patent pending: TD also said the bank’s patent portfolio has increased to 2,500 filings, a 110 per cent increase since 2020. In an interview, Imran Khan, head of TD Bank’s innovation program, said one in five of the patents TD files is related to AI. Three Canadian banks, including TD, placed in the top 10 global financial institutions in an April ranking of AI innovation by data and research firm Evident. 

Khan said the bank focuses on developing technology for specific in-house purposes to improve productivity: “Our focus is really on creating great experiences for our customers and our colleagues.”

AI for retail: The new AI initiatives TD announced are related to retail banking customers and front-line workers. “For generative AI specifically, we’re really focused on supporting our colleagues,” Khan said. Luke Gee, TD’s head of AI and analytics, said retail banking is particularly well-suited to AI, which is good at finding patterns in large amounts of data. “You’re able to deal with it with relative ease,” he said. Gee said his team is also working with the bank’s insurance, direct investing and wealth management divisions on AI applications.

Mum on anti-money laundering: Earlier this month, TD announced it had put aside US$450 million against future penalties under U.S. money laundering and bank secrecy rules, saying its anti–money-laundering program “was insufficient to effectively monitor, detect, report and respond to suspicious activity.” The U.S. probes are reportedly related to the bank’s alleged role in a US$653-million drug case, taking cash deposits from a fentanyl ring and helping to move the money abroad.

Khan declined to comment on whether the bank is researching how to use AI to improve its anti-money laundering practices.