Taps veteran tech executive to lead team
TORONTO, Feb. 18, 2026 /CNW/ - Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:RY) (NYSE:RY) today announced the creation of the AI Group, a newly established team reporting to the Chief Executive Officer that will accelerate the bank's AI ambitions over the next several years.
Building on existing capabilities and top AI talent, this group will work closely with business and functional teams to turn high-potential AI use cases into market-ready solutions that bring value to clients. Already a recognized leader in AI for financial services, ranking #1 in Canada and #3 globally for AI maturity, the bank outlined its bold ambition to achieve up to $1 billion in enterprise value generated from AI benefits by 2027 at its 2025 Investor Day.
"RBC has spent the past decade investing in AI, including proprietary data platforms and scale, exceptional talent and world-class security," said Dave McKay, President and CEO, RBC. "With generative and agentic AI opening new frontiers for financial services, we are creating a dedicated team to leverage our core strength and data scale and partner across the business to turn potential into real value for our clients."
RBC has tapped veteran tech executive Bruce Ross to lead the new group as Group Head, AI. Ross has spent 12 years as Group Head of RBC Technology & Operations, during which time he has built a world-class team and technology platform, led digital transformation, overseen the complex integration of HSBC Bank Canada and driven major product developments. In his new role, Ross will lead a team that serves as an AI accelerator for the bank, with a focus on driving the shift from early-stage AI projects to scaled, client outcomes that amplify the impact of RBC's people. He will continue to report directly to Dave McKay and will remain on Group Executive.
In addition to helping scale the biggest AI opportunities at RBC, the team will also be responsible for advancing research into emerging use cases across generative and agentic AI, while maintaining expertise in security, responsible AI and regulatory expectations.
Naim Kazmi, most recently EVP, Commercial, Core Banking & Payments Technology at RBC, moves into the role of Group Head, Technology & Operations and will join the bank's Group Executive. Kazmi is a transformational global technology leader with more than 25 years of experience delivering innovative solutions, with broad experience across the technology landscape, having held multiple leadership roles across both architecture/engineering as well as technology delivery. He has led several transformative initiatives for RBC, most notably as the technology lead for the successful integration of HSBC Bank Canada.
This announcement caps a year that has seen RBC materially advance its AI capabilities including:
- Earlier this year, RBC partnered with AI company Cohere, a leader in security and privacy focused enterprise AI, to co-develop and securely deploy North for Banking - an enterprise generative AI solution optimized for financial services.
- RBC recently joined MIT's FinTechAI@CSAIL initiative to access early-stage research in AI explainability, bias mitigation and LLM safety as well as cybersecurity and financial crime prevention.
- RBC is the only Canadian bank in the top ten among 50 global banks, in the 2025 Evident AI Index, ranking #1 in Canada and #3 globally for AI maturity in financial services.
- RBC is part of Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) efforts to support common controls for AI services for safe and compliant AI adoption in the financial industry, and Bhupesh Vora, a leader in the bank's Capital Markets division, was recently announced as Chair of the FINOS Governing Board.
- ATOM™, RBC's proprietary Asynchronous Temporal Model, is securely trained using large-scale financial datasets, enabling RBC to leverage unique insights and develop innovative solutions. In 2025, ATOM was used across 15 RBC products and processes.
- Almost 27,000 employees are now using RBC Assist and 8,000 Capital Markets employees are using Aiden, RBC's proprietary AI employee assistant tools to work faster and smarter and free up time for more meaningful work.
- RBC Lumina™, our internal enterprise data and AI platform designed to drive innovation at scale, is built on one of the largest clusters of graphic processing units (GPUs) among Canadian financial institutions.
- 1,200+ patent filings since 2019 with 635 related to AI, reflecting our overall commitment to AI innovation.
The new AI Group will also help to prepare the bank's workforce of more than 100,000 employees in 29 countries for a future where AI will play a greater role in their day-to-day work. Working closely with HR and Learning teams, the group will ensure RBC's AI adoption is aligned with organizational goals and equip employees with training, tools and support to leverage the full power of this technology in their roles.
"AI is a generational technology that enables us to reimagine what is possible and with almost a decade of investment in AI talent, RBC is perfectly positioned to unlock the full potential of our people," said Kelly Bradley, Chief Human Resources Officer, RBC. "We see AI acting as a key tool helping employees to make better decisions, uncover opportunities, focus on higher-impact work and grow their skills for the future. That's why we have prioritized AI fluency with our executives and rolled out training and tools to help all employees adapt, learn and stay curious as AI becomes part of how we work."
As with all RBC's AI endeavours, the AI Group will also ensure the continued ethical development of AI tools, products and platforms in line with its Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) Principles ensuring that high standards of accountability, fairness, privacy and security, and transparency continue to be upheld in all the bank's AI efforts.
About RBC
Royal Bank of Canada is a global financial institution with a purpose-driven, principles-led approach to delivering leading performance. Our success comes from the 100,000+ employees who leverage their imaginations and insights to bring our vision, values and strategy to life so we can help our clients thrive and communities prosper. As Canada's biggest bank and one of the largest in the world, based on market capitalization, we have a diversified business model with a focus on innovation and providing exceptional experiences to our more than 19 million clients in Canada, the U.S. and 27 other countries. Learn more at rbc.com.
We are proud to support a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments and employee volunteer activities. See how at rbc.com/peopleandplanet.
For more information, please contact:
Louise Armstrong
SOURCE Royal Bank of Canada
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