Evident Launches First Index Measuring AI Maturity of the World’s Leading Banks

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • 26.01.2023 04:30 pm

The Evident AI Index, the first Index to track companies on their artificial intelligence (AI) maturity, launches today. 

Evident, a strategic benchmarking and intelligence company, has released its inaugural Index, the first ‘outside-in’ assessment of the 23 largest banks in North America and Europe on their overall level of AI readiness.

“Banks are increasingly focused on AI to drive their competitive advantage — with a direct impact on their speed to market, cost advantage and ability to assess, analyse and react to information when making decisions on everything from fraud to market trading,” said Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Evident Co-Founder and CEO. “As the real-world application of AI accelerates at astonishing speed, we believe that this transformation is too important — for managers, for investors, for society at large — to be happening in a darkened room. Our Index measures the race to banking AI maturity in a way that brings transparency to the top of the agenda.” 

The Evident AI Index, which is available now at evidentinsights.com, offers a unique “outside-in” assessment based on millions of public data points. The volume of data, and the range of sources analysed, has enabled Evident to build a more complete and rich assessment of corporate AI readiness. Crucially, the Evident AI Index provides an unbiased and independent profile of each bank’s AI maturity, without resting on proprietary surveys that suffer from self-reported biases.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Tops Inaugural Evident Index

JPMorgan Chase & Co. led banks in the inaugural Evident AI Index, leading on all pillars, scoring 63% of the available points. The bank is joined in the top five by Royal Bank of Canada, Citi, UBS, and Wells Fargo.

North American banks are typically ahead of European counterparts in building AI capability, occupying 7 out of the top 10 rankings in the Index. Three European banks make it into the top ten, with strong performances from UBS, ING and BNP Paribas. 

North America’s strong performance was bolstered by Canadian banks that have shown a high commitment to AI maturity. RBC secured the second slot in the Evident Index, due to its early focus on building AI transparency, as well as its commitment to innovation. Strong performances from the two Canadian banks RBC and Toronto-Dominion Bank (ranked 2nd and 6th) may also be reflective of the Canadian government’s focus on the technology: Canada was the first country in the world to publish an AI strategy in 2016. 

“JPMorgan Chase’s dominance is due to a long-term commitment to AI at the most senior levels backed up by significant and sustained investment in talent and research. They have adopted an approach taken by tech firms, establishing research and R&D units, and creating an attractive environment for industry-leading talent,” said Annabel Ayles, Evident Co-Founder and COO. “In contrast, many European banks don’t seem to have demonstrated the ambition and sustained investment of the largest North American banks.”

“At JPMorgan Chase, we have focused on AI – talent, technology, data –  for almost a decade with tremendous benefits for the firm. Our AI teams have contributed top-quality novel research and compelling solutions to many business use cases. Evident’s Index on AI provides valuable insights and aims to bring a level of transparency that will be good for banks and vital for public understanding of the opportunities created by AI."

Jamie Dimon, Chairman & CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Comprehensive Insights To Cut Through The AI Noise

Evident was created to bring transparency and openness to AI implementation across the business world. The company recently secured $3 million in funding from leading VCs and angel investors, including Venrex Investment Management (an early backer of Revolut, Charlotte Tilbury, and data businesses such as WatchKeeper and 365 Scores), Scott Galloway, NYU Professor and co-host of Pivot podcast, Robin Saunders, CEO, Clearbrook Capital, David Brierwood, former COO of MSCI, Dimitri Goulandris, CEO, Cycladic and Gary Ginsberg, former Executive Vice President Time Warner.

This is the year of AI, and we are seeing a rapid rise in AI use in almost every single sector. As the market begins to discern winners from losers based on their capability in AI, robust metrics and insight become key to stakeholder value. Evident is uniquely placed to provide that clarity.”

Scott Galloway, NYU Professor and Co-host of Pivot podcast

Building The World’s First AI Index for Business

The Evident AI Index’s proprietary methodology was developed with input from more than 50 leading AI and banking experts. Each bank is ranked and assessed on 143 individual indicators to assess four key critical capability areas with assigned weights of (40%, 30%, 15% and 15% respectively):

-        Talent | measures the number and experience of AI and data employees stated as working at each bank, as well as the visible initiatives underway to hire, retain and develop leading AI talent

-        Innovation | measures the steps banks are taking to drive innovation across the bank, covering academic research and patents, investments in technology and AI-first companies, as well as broader engagement in the open source ecosystem

-        Leadership | measures the public communications of company and group-level leadership, including the existence of a public AI narrative across group-level investor materials, press releases and media

-        Transparency | measures the extent to which banks are publicly communicating a wide range of responsible AI activities and making visible their efforts to create AI-specific controls

“Our work has only just begun,” adds Ayles. “Through our Index — and eventually, Indices — we aim to help companies across several sectors accelerate value, benefit customers, and fundamentally capture the enormous opportunity and mitigate the risks that AI will introduce.”

Evident will update the Index in September 2023 to incorporate additional global banks and new pillars, before expanding across sectors. Evident aims to grow its coverage to more than 1,000 companies across a range of sectors. Alongside the Index, Evident produces high-frequency data trackers and research to monitor emerging trends around AI adoption in the financial services sector.

“Organisations like Evident have a vital role to play in helping banks and the wider financial services ecosystem to look beyond the AI hype machine, avoid wastage and bad investments and focus their efforts on the areas where successful AI deployment will mean pronounced benefits for their organisations, for their customers."

Mattias Fras, Head of AI Hub, Nordea

“For traditional banks, getting AI right is an existential issue, which is why investment - in talent and R&D, as well as real-world commercial AI deployment - is soaring. But as the pace of AI adoption accelerates, greater transparency around how major banking institutions are using AI is necessary to ensure that the result is a race to the top. Critically, we must ensure that the application of AI does not lead to unforeseen negative consequences in an industry that touches all of our lives."

Kay Firth-Butterfield, Head of AI and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum

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