A construction and commercial real estate lender that meets AI mainly as tenant demand for the buildings it finances; its own filings name AI as a technology focus and a hiring area, and its only named AI project, co-developing agents on Fiserv's agentOS, was disclosed by the vendor, not the bank.
How is Bank OZK using AI?
Bank OZK, the $41.7 billion Little Rock bank that operates without a holding company and files its reports with the FDIC, has not named an AI leader or an AI budget; its own documents say only that it is investing in the technology. Three items make up the record. Its fourth-quarter 2025 and first-quarter 2026 management comments say the bank has made 'significant investments in technology' and increased headcount 'in data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence'. Its 2025 annual report on Form 10-K says it continues to focus on 'the evolving role and importance of technology, including artificial intelligence', and Fiserv named Bank OZK in May 2026 as one of four banks co-developing the next wave of AI agents on its agentOS platform. Jason Cathey, the Chief Information Officer since 2022 and previously its Chief Information Security Officer, runs technology. Otherwise AI appears on the other side of the balance sheet: as demand for the office and life-science projects its Real Estate Specialties Group finances. On the first-quarter 2026 call management said that 'the AI boom is generating opportunities for our life science product' in the Bay Area, and on the second-quarter call George Gleason said leasing in life-science buildings was 'for technology, AI, or office purposes'. George Gleason, chairman and CEO since 1979, leads a bank whose RESG originations reached $1.61 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 and whose RESG book was still over $15 billion in mid-2026. The credit cycle, not technology, dominates its disclosure: net charge-offs in commercial real estate jumped in late 2025, the allowance for credit losses more than doubled over three years, and Gleason told analysts in January 2026 that 2026 was 'pretty near the end' of the cycle. Results remain strong for its size: record full-year 2025 earnings per share of $6.18, net income to common of $699.3 million for 2025 and $163.3 million in the second quarter of 2026. Its earnings-call transcripts do not describe AI in the bank's own operations, and no data-centre lending is broken out in the documents reviewed. Treat this page as a thin record for an FDIC-supervised bank whose AI story is mostly a lending-demand story.
Lead bank
Bank OZK
Assets (lead bank, Jun 30, 2026)
$42 billion
Charter
Arkansas state nonmember bank (FDIC); the bank is the public company, with no holding company
Headquarters
Little Rock, AR
AI leadership
George Gleason · Brannon Hamblen · Cindy Wolfe · Tim Hicks · Jake Munn · Jason Cathey · Arindam Majumdar · Tamara Gotham · Marcio deOliveira
- No AI leader or spend disclosed by the bank itself; its earnings-call transcripts for Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 describe AI only as tenant demand, and its management comments name AI only as a hiring area.
- Fiserv agentOS: Bank OZK is one of four banks co-developing the next wave of Fiserv's AI agents (announced May 14, 2026), with deployments set to begin in summer 2026.
- The 2025 10-K names AI as a focus area and includes an AI risk factor: opaque algorithms and datasets, bias, explainability duties under banking rules, and dependence on third-party models.
- AI appears as tenant demand: Bay Area life-science and office projects with 'tech AI-type users' in contention, per the first-quarter 2026 call; the CEO pointed to AI demand in Silicon Valley in January 2026 and to AI and technology tenants again in July 2026.
- Signature business is construction and CRE lending through the Real Estate Specialties Group; $1.61 billion originated in Q4 2025.
- Credit cycle is the disclosure focus: CRE charge-offs spiked in Q4 2025, the allowance doubled over three years, recovery about a year away, as American Banker summarised the CEO's view.
- Record 2025: EPS $6.18, net income to common $699.3 million; Q1 2026 net income to common $159.3 million.
- Structure: a state nonmember bank with no holding company, reporting to the FDIC rather than the SEC; 267 offices in nine states at 30 June 2026 by its own count (272 in FDIC data), with deposit-taking branches in six of them (Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Tennessee) per the FDIC Summary of Deposits.
- Management comments of January and April 2026 say the bank has made 'significant investments in technology' over two years and increased its headcount in 'data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence'.
- Jason Cathey, Chief Information Officer since 2022, previously served as Chief Information Security Officer (2018 to 2022); Arindam Majumdar, Chief Risk Officer since 2025, ran Enterprise Risk Analytics from 2019 to 2023.
- The 2025 10-K says continued investment in cybersecurity tools, cloud migration, digital banking and 'emerging technologies, including AI' is essential to efficiency; the bank had about 3,280 full-time-equivalent employees at 31 December 2025.
- OZK Labs, an in-house technology unit in St. Petersburg, Florida, came with the 2016 C1 Financial acquisition; it ran a machine-learning team in 2019 and the 2025 10-K still lists it among the bank's properties.
- Patents assigned to the bank date from 2014 to 2015 and were filed by C1 Bank or the bank under its former name, Bank of the Ozarks: three granted (payments and app integration) and two abandoned loan-analytics applications; none is recent or generative-AI related.
- In the Q2 2026 call Gleason put the RESG book at over $15 billion and the CIB book at over $7 billion, expecting the two to be equal in size in 2027; neither the Q4 2025 nor the Q1 2026 transcript mentions data centres.
What AI partnerships and patents does Bank OZK have?
Bank OZK's only named AI partnership is Fiserv's agentOS, which Fiserv says is built with OpenAI and runs on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore; the bank is one of four co-developers of the next wave of agents. No direct contract with an AI lab, cloud or GPU supplier is public. Its intellectual property is old: three granted US patents (2016 to 2019) on payment authorisation, provisional accounts and third-party app integration, and two abandoned 2015 loan-analytics applications, all assigned to Bank of the Ozarks, the bank's name before 2018, or to C1 Bank, which merged into it. No patent or application since 2019 is listed under those names.[10][11][23][24][25][26][27][21]
| Item | What it is | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiserv agentOS | Agentic-AI operating system; Bank OZK co-develops the next wave of agents with Salem Five, City National Bank and SouthState | Co-development | 2026-05-14[10][11] |
| OpenAI and Amazon Web Services (through Fiserv) | Model and platform layer under agentOS; no Bank OZK contract with either is disclosed | Indirect | 2026-05-14[10] |
| OZK Labs | In-house technology unit in St. Petersburg, Florida, acquired with C1 Financial in 2016; had a machine-learning team in 2019 and is still listed in the 2025 10-K | Operating | 2026-02-25[21][22][8] |
| US 9,525,690 B2 | Securely integrating third-party applications with banking systems (granted; Google Patents lists it as expired) | Granted | 2016-12-20[23] |
| US 9,785,940 B2 | Distributed real-time authorisation of payment transactions (granted; Google Patents lists it as expired) | Granted | 2017-10-10[24] |
| US 10,242,362 B2 | Issuance of provisional financial accounts to mobile devices (granted; Google Patents lists it as expired) | Granted | 2019-03-26[25] |
| US 2015/0339769 A1 | Data integrity and loan approval automation by data aggregation and analysis (filed by C1 Bank) | Published application, abandoned | 2015-11-26[26] |
| US 2015/0348186 A1 | Customer acquisition probability and risk-adjusted return-on-equity analysis (filed by C1 Bank) | Published application, abandoned | 2015-12-03[27] |
What has Bank OZK done on AI, and when?
- Aug 31, 2026
U.S. Bank hires from Bank OZK for its Sun Belt push[2]
Erhen McGeehan, most recently at Bank OZK, leads U.S. Bank's Florida business-banking expansion; Laura Chapa also joined from OZK as a business banking sales manager in Dallas.
- Jul 22, 2026
Gleason sizes the RESG and CIB books[19]
RESG over $15 billion and CIB over $7 billion, with the two expected to be equal in size at some point in 2027; total CRE concentration below the 300% regulatory guideline, and about $3 billion of loan repayments in the quarter.
- Jul 22, 2026
- Jul 21, 2026
- May 18, 2026
Annual meeting[28]
Thirteen directors elected; equity plan amended.
- May 14, 2026
agentOS built with OpenAI and AWS; marketplace opens with 13 agents[10][11]
Fiserv says agentOS uses Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and is developed with OpenAI; the marketplace starts with four Fiserv agents and nine third-party agents, and the platform is expected to be widely available by August 2026. Bank OZK is not named as a user of any specific agent.
- May 14, 2026
- Apr 22, 2026
'The AI boom is generating opportunities' for life-science lending[7]
Two Bay Area projects in contention for tech and AI tenants.
- Apr 21, 2026
First-quarter management comments repeat the AI hiring language[15]
The April 2026 comments say the bank has made significant investments in technology and increased its headcount in 'data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence'.
- Apr 21, 2026
First-quarter 2026 results[6]
Net income to common $159.3 million; $41.7 billion of assets.
- Feb 25, 2026
2025 10-K includes an AI risk factor[8]
The bank lists technology 'including artificial intelligence' as a strategic focus and warns of limited visibility into algorithms and datasets, bias, explainability and reliance on third-party AI models.
- Feb 25, 2026
10-K lists AI among the technology investments essential to efficiency[8]
Item 1 says continued investment in cybersecurity tools, cloud migration, digital banking enhancements and 'emerging technologies, including AI' remains essential; about 3,280 FTE employees at year-end; OZK Labs in St. Petersburg listed among its properties; Jason Cathey named Chief Information Officer.
- Jan 21, 2026
CEO on technology built for the new lending lines[5]
Gleason said the bank had 'spent a lot of money, hired a lot of people, built a lot of technology, acquired a lot of technology' to launch its corporate and institutional banking lines, with fee income gains expected in 2026 and 2027.
- Jan 21, 2026
CEO: AI 'driving a lot of demand' in Silicon Valley[5]
Gleason told analysts that prospective AI users were touring the bank's Bay Area life-science projects and the environment was 'getting more constructive in a noticeable way'.
- Jan 21, 2026
- Jan 20, 2026
Management comments name AI as a hiring area[14]
The 'Technology' bullet says the bank has made significant investments in technology over two years, 'including increasing our headcount in data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence, among others'.
- Jan 20, 2026
Fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results[4]
Full-year EPS a record $6.18; net income to common $699.3 million.
- Oct 16, 2025
Record third-quarter 2025 earnings[3]
Net income to common $180.5 million.
- Jul 17, 2025
CEO links hiring growth to 'risk and model and data and technology' staff[13]
On the second-quarter 2025 call Gleason said growth in loans, deposits and branches also drove additional hiring in risk, model, data and technology teams; the bank planned about 25 branch openings in 2026.
- Jan 16, 2025
Headcount reaches 3,028 full-time-equivalent employees[12]
The fourth-quarter 2024 management comments report 3,028 FTE employees at 31 December 2024, up 284 in a year.
Where does Bank OZK use AI today?
| System | What it does | Status | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI-driven tenant demand in CRE lending[7] | Life-science and office projects financed on the strength of tech and AI tenant interest. | In production | Credit scoring & underwriting |
| Co-developing AI agents on Fiserv agentOS[10][11] | One of four banks building the next wave of agents with its core provider; deployments were due to begin in summer 2026. Disclosed by Fiserv, not by the bank. | Announced | Generative & agentic AI |
| AI risk-factor disclosure[8] | The 2025 10-K covers AI used by the bank or its vendors to improve service and automate business decisions or risk management, uncertain AI law, opaque models, bias, explainability and third-party training data. | In production | Model risk management |
| No named internal AI use case[5][6][15] | Earnings-call transcripts and releases describe no AI application in the bank's own operations; the only internal AI language is the hiring and investment statement in the management comments. | Announced | AI governance (general) |
| Data, analytics, modeling and AI hiring[14][15] | Management comments of January and April 2026 say headcount in data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence has increased over two years; no headcount figure is given for those teams. | Rolling out | AI governance (general) |
| Agent catalogue available through agentOS[10] | Fiserv's first four agents cover commercial loan onboarding, daily operational analysis and reporting, deposit intelligence and AML triage; Fiserv did not say which agents the four co-developing banks are building. | Announced | Generative & agentic AI |
| Proprietary applications plus third-party service providers[8] | The 10-K says a mix of proprietary applications and third-party providers supports lending, deposit operations, treasury management and data analytics, and that internal technology teams develop and maintain applications. | In production | Third-party & vendor AI |
| Cybersecurity tooling under a CIO who came from the security role[8] | The 10-K lists cybersecurity tools among continuing technology investments and notes a 36-hour FDIC notification duty for significant computer-security incidents; Jason Cathey was Chief Information Security Officer from 2018 to 2022 before becoming CIO. | In production | Cybersecurity |
Use-case links open the tracker's rules-by-use-case matrix: which documents govern each system type.
Which AI vendors and fintechs does Bank OZK work with?
| Company | What Bank OZK uses it for | Status | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Bedrock (AWS) | Named by Fiserv (May 2026) as a co-developer of agents for agentOS, built with OpenAI on AWS Bedrock; not named as a user of any specific agent. | Announced | Enterprise AI assistants |
| Fiserv | Co-developing the next wave of agentOS agents | Announced | Banking platforms |
Each vendor and fintech page cites the source for the relationship, and vendor pages list products, pricing and other bank customers. Compare AI tools for banks by category, or read the fintech and neobank AI dossiers.
What has Bank OZK disclosed in numbers?
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Total assets | $41.7 billion[6] | Mar 31, 2026 |
| First-quarter 2026 net income to common | $159.3 million[6] | Apr 21, 2026 |
| Full-year 2025 EPS / net income to common | $6.18 (record) / $699.3 million[4] | Jan 20, 2026 |
| RESG originations, Q4 2025 | $1.61 billion[1] | Jan 21, 2026 |
| Offices / states | 267 / 9 (bank's count; FDIC lists 272 offices)[18][16] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| States with deposit-taking branches (FDIC Summary of Deposits) | 6: Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee (242 branches)[17] | Jun 30, 2025 |
| Full-time-equivalent employees | About 3,280 (3,028 a year earlier)[8][12] | Dec 31, 2025 |
| Retail branches / loan production offices | 252 / 13[8] | Dec 31, 2025 |
| Second-quarter 2026 efficiency ratio | 39.2% (35.5% in Q2 2025)[18][20] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Second-quarter 2026 non-interest expense | $170.6 million, up 11.4% year on year[20] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| RESG / CIB loan books | Over $15 billion / over $7 billion[19] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Fiserv agentOS co-developers / launch agents | 6 institutions / 4 Fiserv plus 9 third-party agents[10] | May 14, 2026 |
| Patents and applications assigned to the bank's names | 3 granted, 2 abandoned applications (none after 2019)[23][24][25][26][27] | Oct 13, 2026 |
“The AI boom is generating opportunities for our life science product, which as we've noted, is flexible to go life science or go more traditional office.”[7]
Brannon Hamblen · President · Apr 22, 2026
“We're well positioned to get through the rest of the cycle in good form.”[1]
George Gleason · Chairman and CEO · Jan 21, 2026
“A lot of it is not for life science. It's for technology, AI, or office purposes.”[19]
George Gleason · Chairman and CEO · Jul 22, 2026
“particularly in the San Francisco Silicon Valley area, A.I. is driving a lot of demand for that space”[5]
George Gleason · Chairman and CEO · Jan 21, 2026
“we've spent a lot of money, hired a lot of people, built a lot of technology, acquired a lot of technology to launch all of these different lines of business.”[5]
George Gleason · Chairman and CEO · Jan 21, 2026
“Over the past two years, we have made significant investments in technology and increased our headcount in data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence.”[15]
Bank OZK management comments · Quarterly 8-K, Technology section · Apr 21, 2026
Who runs AI at Bank OZK?
Brannon Hamblen
President[5]
Cindy WolfeLinkedIn ↗
Chief Operating Officer[5]
Tim HicksLinkedIn ↗
Chief Financial Officer[5]
Jake Munn
President, Corporate and Institutional Banking[5]
Jason CatheyLinkedIn ↗
Chief Information Officer (since 2022; Chief Information Security Officer 2018 to 2022; joined 2015)[8]
Arindam Majumdar
Chief Risk Officer (since 2025); Managing Director, Enterprise Risk Analytics 2019 to 2023; formerly Discover and JPMorgan Chase risk roles[8]
Tamara Gotham
Chief Administrative Officer (since 2022); previously Director of Corporate Security and Resilience[8]
What AI roles is Bank OZK hiring for?
Data as of · 3 AI-titled postings · read from Bank OZK's own careers site, re-checked weekly
3 open AI-related postings on Bank OZK's careers site as of Oct 25, 2026. A snapshot of current openings, not a source: postings close. Compare with other banks on which banks are hiring for AI.
Dallas, Texas · posted
Dallas, Texas · posted
AVP Product Manager - AI Solutions
Dallas, Texas · posted
Which regulators govern Bank OZK's AI?
| Authority | Why it matters here | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| FDIC | Bank OZK is a state nonmember bank with no holding company; the FDIC is its primary federal supervisor and its securities regulator. | FDIC FIL-29-2023 FDIC FIL-15-2026 |
| Federal Reserve | Interagency model-risk and third-party guidance still frame any future AI in underwriting or servicing. | SR 11-7 SR 23-4 |
| CFPB | Consumer deposit and lending products bring UDAAP and adverse-action duties to any automated decisioning. | ECOA / Regulation B adverse action (15 U.S.C. 1691(d); 12 CFR 1002.9) |
Side by side: SR 11-7 vs SR 26-2 · PRA SS1/23 vs SR 26-2 · MAS AI Risk Management Guidelines vs SR 26-2 · OCC vs CFPB on AI lending · all comparisons.
What does the public record suggest about Bank OZK's AI strategy?
Analysis by BankingNewsAI from the sources cited on this page. Observations, not advice.
01
AI is a concentration risk here before it is a tool
Financing buildings for AI tenants ties the CRE book to AI-sector demand; if that demand cools, the lending thesis, not a model, is what breaks.
02
A no-holding-company bank has one supervisor
Everything AI-related will be judged by the FDIC alone, which simplifies governance but concentrates examiner attention.
03
AI hiring is disclosed, AI leadership is not
The management comments report more headcount in data, analytics, modeling and AI but name no head of AI; the executive team lists a CIO, a CRO and no data or AI officer.
04
Watch the management comments
The 'Technology' bullet in the quarterly management comments is where the bank has put its only first-person AI statement; a change there, or a Fiserv deployment announcement, is the likeliest next signal.
Where does the Bank OZK record go deeper?
Which leader rankings does Bank OZK appear in?
1 of the computed leaders rankings include Bank OZK, each ranked from the same sourced bank pages.
How does Bank OZK compare with its peers?
- How does Bank OZK compare with its peers on AI and technology?
- Bank OZK competitors and alternatives, by business line
Its peer group on this site, by business model and size:
Who leads AI at Bank OZK?
Bank OZK has not named a head of AI or a chief data officer. Technology sits with Chief Information Officer Jason Cathey, who has held the role since 2022 after serving as Chief Information Security Officer from 2018. Chief Risk Officer Arindam Majumdar ran Enterprise Risk Analytics from 2019 to 2023. President Brannon Hamblen and Chief Operating Officer Cindy Wolfe speak to analysts, and George Gleason has been chairman and CEO since 1979. The January and April 2026 management comments say headcount in data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence has grown, without naming a leader.
Does Bank OZK use AI?
Bank OZK's management comments of January and April 2026 say it increased headcount in 'data, analytics, modeling and artificial intelligence', and its 2025 10-K names AI among the technologies essential to efficiency and as a risk factor. It has not described a specific AI application, programme budget or AI leader, and its earnings-call transcripts discuss AI only as tenant demand for the life-science and office projects it finances. Fiserv said in May 2026 that Bank OZK is co-developing AI agents on its agentOS platform.
Does Bank OZK lend to data centres?
The documents reviewed do not break out data-centre lending. The Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 call transcripts contain no mention of data centres, and the 2025 10-K describes the Real Estate Specialties Group as construction, land development and commercial real estate lending nationwide, now over $15 billion and shrinking against a $7 billion corporate and institutional book. Management links AI to demand for Bay Area life-science and office space: two projects were in contention for tech and AI tenants in April 2026.
Which AI vendors and patents does Bank OZK have?
The only named AI vendor link is Fiserv's agentOS, which Fiserv says is built with OpenAI and runs on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore; Bank OZK is one of four banks co-developing agents on it. No direct contract with an AI lab or cloud provider is public. Patents assigned to Bank of the Ozarks, the bank's name before 2018, include three granted US patents from 2016 to 2019 on payments and app integration and two abandoned 2015 loan-analytics applications, all from C1 Bank or the bank's legacy work.
Who regulates Bank OZK?
Bank OZK is an Arkansas state nonmember bank and has no holding company, so the FDIC is both its primary federal supervisor and the agency it files its annual and quarterly reports with. Interagency model-risk and third-party guidance apply, and consumer products fall under CFPB rules.
- Bank OZK says spike in charge-offs is no cause for alarm
- U.S. Bank's business banking expansion targets the Sun Belt
- Bank OZK Announces Record Third Quarter 2025 Earnings
- Bank OZK Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings
- Transcript of the Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call
- Bank OZK Announces First Quarter 2026 Earnings
- Transcript of the First Quarter 2026 Conference Call
- Bank OZK 2025 Annual Report (including Annual Report on Form 10-K)
- Bank OZK (OZK) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong CIB Growth and Strategic Buybacks
- Fiserv Launches agentOS: The Operating System for Agentic AI in Banking
- Fiserv has co-created AI agents with six banks and OpenAI
- Bank OZK Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Management Comments
- Transcript of the Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call
- Bank OZK Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Management Comments
- Bank OZK Form 8-K and First Quarter 2026 Management Comments
- FDIC BankFind Suite API: Bank OZK (cert 110) institution record, report date June 30, 2026
- FDIC BankFind Suite API: Summary of Deposits, Bank OZK (cert 110) branches, June 30, 2025
- Bank OZK Announces Second Quarter 2026 Earnings
- Earnings call transcript: Bank OZK tops Q2 2026 estimates on margin gains
- Bank OZK Q2 Earnings Beat Estimates on Higher Fee Income, Shares Fall
- Bank OZK Hones Edge with Innovation Lab Stressing Practical Change
- OZK Labs Named Best Places to Work in Financial Technology 2019
- US9525690B2: Securely integrating third-party applications with banking systems
- US9785940B2: System and method for distributed real time authorization of payment transactions
- US10242362B2: Systems and methods for issuance of provisional financial accounts to mobile devices
- US20150339769A1: System and method for enforcing data integrity and loan approval automation by means of data aggregation and analysis
- US20150348186A1: System and method for dynamic customer acquisition probability and risk-adjusted return-on-equity analysis
- Form 8-K: 2026 annual meeting vote results
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