How does Bank of America use AI in wealth management?
Bank of America's wealth AI runs through Merrill Wealth Management and Bank of America Private Bank and is built on Erica's technology plus enterprise software. Erica has supported Merrill clients since August 31, 2020 with portfolio performance, trading, balances, quotes and holdings, and by August 2025 gave guidance on nearly 50 investment-related topics. Advisers use ask MERRILL and ask PRIVATE BANK, Erica-based assistants with more than 23 million interactions in 2024, and Client Insights, launched in 2020, which had delivered over 30 million AI-enabled insights to advisers by October 2024. The newest tool is AI-Powered Meeting Journey, announced for full-scale rollout on March 26, 2026: meeting prep in Salesforce, an AI notetaker in Zoom with client consent, and automatic follow-up tasks, which the bank says can save advisers up to four hours per meeting. About 15,000 Merrill and Private Bank employees get it in the first phase, and Merrill's Inez Louzonis said it saw the fastest adoption of any recent tool among more than 1,500 beta advisers. Merrill co-head Lindsay Hans had described the pilots in July 2025 and said Merrill would scale them in 2026; in October 2026 she said the aim is to scale AI 'while keeping advisors firmly at the center of the client relationship'. The bank says AI 'cannot replace' advisers' judgment, and it has published neither Meeting Journey usage since launch nor wealth-specific AI spending.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Data as of Oct 31, 2026 · BofA profile updated Oct 26, 2026 · 22 sources cited on this page · 141 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
Which AI tools do Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank use?
Named tools in order of launch. Figures are the bank's own; none is independently audited.
| Tool | Users | What it does | Figures | Since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Erica for Merrill clients | Clients with a Merrill investing or retirement relationship or a Private Bank relationship, in the Bank of America app | Insights on portfolio performance, trading, investment balances, quotes and holdings; connects clients to a Merrill adviser and can schedule an appointment | Guidance on nearly 50 investment-related topics (August 2025) | August 31, 2020[1][2] |
| Digital Wealth Overview | Merrill clients | Personalized interactive video presentations of three to four minutes, narrated by Erica | Not disclosed | 2020[7] |
| Client Insights | Merrill and Private Bank advisers | AI-enabled data analytics that flag changes in client circumstances, for tax harvesting, retirement planning, student banking and other needs | Over 30 million insights delivered since launch (October 2024) | 2020[4] |
| ask MERRILL and ask PRIVATE BANK | Merrill and Private Bank advisers and teams | Assistants built on Erica's technology that curate information, analyze client data and connect teams with experts for complex requests | More than 23 million interactions in 2024, up 1 million on 2023 | Not dated by the bank[3][6] |
| AI-Powered Meeting Journey | Advisers and their teams | Meeting Prep consolidates client insights and recent activity; Meeting Summarization acts as an AI notetaker in virtual meetings with client consent; Meeting Follow-Up generates tasks and documentation | Up to four hours saved per meeting; about 15,000 employees in the first phase; more than 1,500 advisers in beta | March 26, 2026[5][6][7] |
| 'Plan my day' and the CRM assistant | Advisers and private bankers in Salesforce Financial Services Cloud | Daily suggestions on meetings, client milestones and due tasks; a conversational assistant that summarizes a client or a whole book of business | Not disclosed | March 26, 2026[6][7] |
| Adviser AI training | Merrill advisers | Online training, webinars, in-person workshops, open office hours, one-on-one sessions in each market and 'best practitioner' sessions; pilot users keep a chat with the platform team whose use cases become a rollout playbook | Not disclosed | Described October 9, 2025[10] |
How has AI at Merrill and the Private Bank developed?
| Date | What happened | Who |
|---|---|---|
| August 31, 2020 | Erica extended to Merrill clients in the Bank of America app, alongside in-app Merrill trading | Bank of America[1] |
| October 1, 2024 | Client Insights passes 30 million AI-enabled insights delivered to advisers since its 2020 launch | Bank of America[4] |
| April 8, 2025 | ask MERRILL and ask PRIVATE BANK logged more than 23 million interactions in 2024 | Bank of America[3] |
| July 16, 2025 | Several generative AI pilots for advisers and support staff, centered on meeting-prep materials that could save 'hours and hours'; plan to 'scale out' to advisers in 2026: 'I still own the agenda of that meeting as the advisor' | Lindsay Hans, president and co-head, Merrill[8] |
| October 9, 2025 | Advisers told to become proficient in current tools and get their data into them 'so that as we are building artificial intelligence on top of these tools, they really benefit you' | Inez Louzonis, Merrill[10] |
| March 26, 2026 | Full-scale rollout of AI-Powered Meeting Journey, configured with Salesforce and Zoom rather than an AI note-taking start-up | Patricio Diaz, Merrill COO; Shimna Sameer, Private Bank[5][7] |
| October 1, 2026 | Merrill's new-adviser training program has about 2,400 participants; Merrill revenue $20.7 billion in 2025 with client balances of about $4 trillion; referrals between advisers and business bankers doubled | Lindsay Hans, via American Banker[9] |
How does Bank of America describe AI's role in advice, and what has it not disclosed?
The bank's own Q&A with the Meeting Journey launch says the adviser's role 'will always remain central to the client relationship' and that AI 'cannot replace the valuable judgment, empathy, understanding and personal connection advisors bring to clients'.[5]
The business case is capacity. Louzonis cited $124 trillion in assets expected to pass to younger generations and an estimated industry shortage of about 100,000 advisers over 10 years: 'we need to help our advisors scale their business'. One Merrill adviser said meeting prep that took 45 minutes now takes a few minutes.[6]
Hans describes the goal as 'scaling AI in a way that enhances productivity, while keeping advisors firmly at the center of the client relationship'.[9]
Not disclosed: Meeting Journey adoption after the first phase, the models inside the Salesforce and Zoom tools, any generative AI answers given to wealth clients without an adviser, and AI spending or measured revenue effect for the wealth businesses.[5][7]
What does the BofA profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Bank of America AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 26, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 47 dated moves, 18 use cases and 71 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| EricaAssist and employee tools | Human-assisted AI agent for customer-service staff; Merrill advisor meeting journey; 400,000 prompts a day across the workforce. | In production | [11][12] |
| AI-Powered Meeting Journey | Meeting preparation, consented AI note-taking and follow-up tasks for Merrill and Private Bank advisers, built on Salesforce CRM data and Zoom; the bank says it can save up to four hours per meeting. | In production | [5][13] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 22, 2026 | Principles for AI shopping agents | With NatWest, ING, Capital One, ASB and Commonwealth Bank, the bank warns AI shopping agents raise scam, fraud and data-privacy risks and proposes disclosure when an agent is in a transaction. | [14] |
| Jul 14, 2026 | Q2 2026 deck adds a dedicated AI slide | Three levels of AI: general-purpose tools (~200,000 users), functional tools for wealth, banking and developers, and multi-process systems for call centres, payments and document intelligence; more than 600,000 AI training courses completed. | [15][16][17] |
| Jul 8, 2026 | Reuters: $520 million credit line to OpenAI | A person familiar with the matter says the loan is the bank's first to OpenAI and that the bank is eyeing advisory roles on the planned OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs; the bank's internal data put its share of AI-related fundraising at 60% since 2025. | [18] |
| Jun 12, 2026 | About 8,400 patents and applications, 1,600 AI-focused | Cameron Wadley, a wealth-management technology executive with 70 applications filed, says several of his patents underpin Erica and now run in all eight lines of business. | [19] |
| Mar 26, 2026 | AI meeting tools for Merrill and the Private Bank | Meeting prep, summaries and next steps integrated with Salesforce and Zoom; about 15,000 employees in the first phase. | [20][6] |
| Oct 28, 2025 | Datos Insights names CashPro Data Intelligence best AI innovation | The suite of CashPro Search, Forecasting and Insights wins the 2025 Datos Impact Award for AI; Merrill SENSE, a large-language-model search engine for marketing teams, wins a second award. | [21] |
| Jul 29, 2025 | Gopalkrishnan replaces Bhasin as CTIO | Aditya Bhasin, CTIO since 2021, leaves for a role advising and investing in small and mid-sized companies. Moynihan's memo says Hari Gopalkrishnan 'leads our efforts to develop, deliver, and drive expanded AI-based services and solutions' with Vice Chair Thong Nguyen, and cites 7,800 patent filings and Erica's 3 billion interactions. | [22] |
What is Merrill's AI-Powered Meeting Journey?
It is an AI tool for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank advisers, rolled out from March 26, 2026, that prepares meeting materials in Salesforce, takes notes in Zoom meetings with client consent and generates follow-up tasks. The bank says it can save up to four hours per meeting; about 15,000 employees get it first.
What is ask MERRILL?
ask MERRILL, and its sibling ask PRIVATE BANK, are internal assistants built on the technology behind Erica that help wealth management teams find information, analyze client data and reach experts in the bank. They recorded more than 23 million interactions in 2024, according to Bank of America.
Can Merrill clients use Erica?
Yes. Since August 31, 2020 Erica has supported clients with Merrill investing or retirement accounts in the Bank of America app, covering portfolio performance, trading, balances, quotes and holdings, and it can connect clients to a Merrill adviser. By 2025 it covered nearly 50 investment-related topics.
Will AI replace Merrill financial advisors?
Bank of America says no: its launch materials state AI cannot replace advisers' judgment, empathy and personal connection. Merrill still runs a new-adviser training program of about 2,400 participants, and executives present AI as a way for each adviser to serve more clients.
How does Merrill train advisors to use AI?
Through online training, webinars, in-person workshops and open office hours for each tool, plus a team that visits markets for one-on-one sessions and runs 'best practitioner' sessions with advisers, according to Merrill's Inez Louzonis in October 2025.
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