How is AI changing Citizens Financial Group's workforce?
Citizens is adding AI skills to a workforce whose size has barely moved. It had 17,570 full-time equivalent employees at the end of 2023, 17,287 at the end of 2024 and 17,398 at the end of 2025, and reported 17,380 FTE colleagues as of March 31, 2026. Its 2025 Sustainability & Impact Report says over 90% of colleagues completed core AI training by the end of 2025, that GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot were deployed with hands-on training, and that nearly 10,000 participants completed Citizens Academies experiences in 2025, alongside 323,000 hours of professional skills training. Engineers went first: CIO Michael Ruttledge said in July 2024 that the bank had reskilled about 600 engineers and hired upward of 750 software engineers, and by December 2025 about 800 engineers, half the total, used GitHub Copilot. Tech staff take three-week academies in software, data and AI engineering and IT architecture, and an AI Academy teaches employees Microsoft Copilot. On jobs, Ruttledge said in December 2025 that he does not see software development jobs going away, while some vendor staff and legacy coders have been let go and staff whose quality-control checks are being automated are being redeployed. Citizens has not set a target for AI-driven headcount change.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Data as of Oct 31, 2026 · Citizens profile updated Oct 13, 2026 · 28 sources cited on this page · 141 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
How has Citizens' headcount changed as it adopted AI?
Full-time equivalent employees from the 10-K human capital section, plus the figure in the 2025 Sustainability & Impact Report.
| As of | Headcount | What the filing adds | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 31, 2023 | 17,570 full-time equivalent employees | Primarily across New England and the Mid-Atlantic | 2023 10-K[1] |
| December 31, 2024 | 17,287 full-time equivalent employees | Same footprint; the 10-K says the bank continues to deploy ML and AI/Gen AI 'to drive value-add impact and improved experiences for our colleagues and customers' | 2024 10-K[2] |
| December 31, 2025 | 17,398 full-time equivalent employees | Human capital strategy 'anchored in a skills-based foundation that drives workforce agility and future readiness' | 2025 10-K[3] |
| March 31, 2026 | 17,380 full-time-equivalent colleagues | Company snapshot in the 2025 Sustainability & Impact Report | Sustainability report[4] |
How does Citizens train employees for AI?
| Date | Program or step | What was said |
|---|---|---|
| October 2023 | Generative AI task force | Included model governance and 'our HR team, our talent development team' alongside data scientists, technology and cybersecurity; a recruiting chatbot was already answering candidates[7] |
| July 26, 2024 | Engineer reskilling | About 600 engineers reskilled over three to four years in cloud, data engineering and genAI; upward of 750 software engineers hired; Copilot to go to about 1,000 engineers after a pilot showed a 20% productivity boost[5] |
| 2024 | Educational Assistance program | Refocused on certifications and courses in next-gen technology, AI, cybersecurity, data and analytics, innovation and wealth management[8] |
| March 10, 2025 | CIO record in the 2025 proxy | Ruttledge credited with 'immersive Engineering and Architecture Academies, digital credentialing and building of critical skills for the future such as AI'[9] |
| December 1, 2025 | Academies and the AI Academy | Three-week academies in software engineering, data engineering, AI engineering and IT architecture for tech staff; an AI Academy where employees learn Microsoft Copilot; about 800 engineers on GitHub Copilot[6] |
| 2025 year-end | Core AI training | Over 90% of colleagues completed core AI training; GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot deployed 'paired with hands-on training and forums to share best practices'[4] |
| 2025 | Training by the numbers | 250 senior managers in leadership development, nearly 10,000 participants across six Citizens Academies, 323,000 hours of professional skills training and 151,000 hours of compliance training[4] |
| February 12, 2026 | 2025 10-K | A new learning operating model launched in 2025; 'By leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced learning platforms we are accelerating personalized learning'[3] |
What has Citizens said about AI and jobs?
Ruttledge told American Banker in December 2025 that he does not see software development jobs going away: 'Coding is still only a fraction of the overall development cycle', and 'You're still going to need engineers to do that'. The same interview says Citizens has 'released' some employees of vendors such as Infosys, Accenture, IBM and Cognizant, let go some legacy coders who were not ready for agile development, and is redeploying people whose call quality-control reviews generative AI is being piloted to cover for 100% of calls.[6]
Hiring is changing too. The 2025 report says Citizens sharpened how it attracts talent 'in a rapidly changing labor market shaped by artificial intelligence', used AI 'to simplify applications, accelerate scheduling, and reduce the time needed to interview and make hiring decisions', and filled nearly 30% of open roles with current colleagues; the 2024 report put internal hires at more than 30% of open roles.[4][8]
Oversight sits with the board's Compensation and HR Committee, which 'considers how the latest technology trends impact the modern workforce', per the 2025 and 2026 proxies. Citizens has not disclosed how many roles Reimagine the Bank will change, an AI-related severance charge, or AI-specific training hours per employee; the 2025 report says it does not disclose average training hours per employee by gender and category.[9][10][4]
What does the Citizens profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Citizens AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 13, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 35 dated moves, 20 use cases and 50 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding agents | GitHub Copilot's agent for ~800 developers; +55% output for advanced-agent users. | In production | [11][12] |
| Enterprise AI-chat agent | The first enterprise-wide AI-chat agent, starting with HR content for colleagues. | In production | [13] |
| Engineers as supervisors of coding agents | Citizens is moving engineers from writing code to managing code-writing agents; average engineer productivity up 30% to 40% in a year. | Rolling out | [14][15] |
| Vendor consolidation and outsourcing exit | Outsourced call-centre and engineering contracts to be shed first; one customer-chat platform to replace several; over $30 million of vendor savings projected for 2026. | Rolling out | [14][16] |
| Models hosted inside the bank's VPC | For some use cases Citizens runs models in its own cloud network so nothing leaves its firewall, trading engineering effort for control. | In production | [17] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 29, 2026 | Coughlin: engineers now 30-40% more productive with AI | American Banker reports the average Citizens engineer is 30% to 40% more productive than a year earlier under the three-year, $300 million Reimagine the Bank project; Coughlin says the role is evolving toward engineers overseeing multiple AI agents, and that AI-existential-risk warnings have 'not really' changed the project's direction. | [15] |
| Jul 16, 2026 | Q2 2026: AI agents in the back office, a 10x engineering pilot | Back-office re-architecture with AI agents orchestrating end-to-end workflows, AI case classification, AI in credit-card contact centres and a first enterprise-wide AI-chat agent; about $7 million of program costs in the quarter. | [13][18][19][20][21] |
| Jun 1, 2026 | The mainframe goes: CIO's cloud-first claim | 700 applications migrated; CiZi −44% call volume; +55% output for engineers on advanced agents. | [12] |
| Apr 16, 2026 | Q1 2026 call: reimagine programme self-funded by non-AI savings | Coughlin said over $30 million of vendor savings were already projected for 2026 and facility closures offset early investment, and that 25% of calls answered by non-humans should arrive in summer and early autumn; AI coding tests showed 30% productivity gains and in some cases 5x to 10x. | [16] |
| Apr 16, 2026 | Q1 2026: LLMs in the call centre, 25% of calls without a human by year-end | About 50% over time; GenAI automating private-company credit research; AI coding pilots showing 30% to 10x productivity gains; $6 million of implementation costs. | [22][23] |
| Mar 9, 2026 | Proxy: Board oversees a 'measured approach to AI' | The DEF 14A says the Board ensures a measured approach to AI within a governance structure with guardrails, that AI-related risk is managed under the enterprise risk framework, and that directors received AI and generative AI training in 2025. | [10] |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Q4 2025 deck: ~50 initiatives in five themes | Software productivity with AI, AI fraud detection, an 'AI Powered Banker' and KYC/AML streamlining among them; two-thirds of the benefit from expenses, about 5% of the 2025 expense base; call-centre modernisation and voice AI discussed on the call. | [24][25] |
| Dec 16, 2025 | The Banker's US Bank of the Year | The award cites AI-driven productivity tools, integrated developer platforms and digital account opening. | [26] |
| Nov 20, 2025 | GitHub Copilot's coding agent to ~800 developers | Half the software developers; fintech partners rewriting legacy systems for the cloud. | [11] |
| Oct 15, 2025 | Q3 2025 deck: agentic AI call centre and agentic infrastructure on the Reimagine list | The deck listed an agentic-AI-enabled call centre, building agentic AI infrastructure, AI-driven pricing, credit and collections, AI-driven fraud, KYC and AML tools, and further upskilling of AI/ML talent, with details promised for January. | [27] |
| Sep 9, 2024 | No in-house LLM: AWS and Microsoft models | Ruttledge said Citizens had no plan to build its own large language models and would use best-in-class models from its providers; gen AI for documentation, code conversion and testing gave a 10% to 20% productivity gain. | [28] |
| Jul 26, 2024 | CIO: 90 gen-AI ideas, six pursued, two in production; Copilot pilot lifts productivity 20% | A hackathon produced over 90 ideas. The two live uses were Microsoft Copilot for engineers (pilot showed a 20% productivity boost; rollout to about 1,000 engineers planned) and a gen-AI product assistant for contact-centre staff. A human validates the code and the answers. | [5] |
How many employees does Citizens have?
Citizens had 17,398 full-time equivalent employees at December 31, 2025, primarily in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, per its 2025 10-K, and 17,380 as of March 31, 2026, per its sustainability report. That compares with 17,570 at the end of 2023 and 17,287 at the end of 2024.
How does Citizens train employees on AI?
Through core AI training that over 90% of colleagues had completed by the end of 2025, monthly webinars and show-and-tell sessions, an AI Academy for Microsoft Copilot, three-week technical academies for engineers, and formal AI academies and badging programs for deeper expertise, according to the 2025 Sustainability & Impact Report and American Banker.
Is Citizens cutting jobs because of AI?
It has not announced AI-driven job cuts or a headcount target, and headcount has stayed near 17,400. CIO Michael Ruttledge said in December 2025 that engineers will still be needed, but the bank has released some vendor staff and legacy coders and is redeploying people whose quality-control work AI is being piloted to automate.
How many Citizens engineers use AI coding tools?
About 800, half of its software engineers, were using GitHub Copilot and some its coding agent by December 2025, per American Banker. In July 2024 the bank planned to roll Copilot out to about 1,000 engineers after a pilot showed a 20% productivity boost; Ruttledge put the later uplift at 10% to 15%.
Is Citizens hiring for AI?
Yes, in small numbers. BankingNewsAI's weekly read of Citizens' careers site on October 27, 2026 listed a distinguished engineer for non-human and agentic identity, principal data scientists including one in decisioning, a principal security engineer for AI data and browser protection, and a senior data scientist in wealth management. Postings change weekly and are not cited as sources; see /banks/ai-hiring.
- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2023
- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2024
- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2025
- 2025 Sustainability & Impact Report (Artificial Intelligence Oversight; Building the Workforce of the Future)
- Citizens CIO: 'Human in the loop' still key for banks using genAI
- Inside Citizens' plan to reimagine itself with AI
- Citizens' plans for using generative AI ethically: Beth Johnson (American Banker Podcast)
- 2024 Sustainability & Impact Report
- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A) for 2025
- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A) for 2026
- How Citi, Citizens, TD deploy AI agents without upsetting humans
- Citizens Financial's Michael Ruttledge is #43 on the Most Innovative People in Finance ranking
- 2Q26 Earnings Presentation (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.2)
- Citizens' Coughlin talks 'overwhelming' pace of AI change
- Tech leaders say AI could end humanity. Banks still love it
- Citizens (CFG) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
- The AI-Enabled Bank: Reimagining Retail Banking from Branch to Mobile
- Citizens Financial Group Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
- Citizens Bank Mobilizes AI to Target $450 Million Operational Savings by 2028
- Citizens to exit in-store branches, build standalones nearby
- Citizens Financial (CFG) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
- 1Q26 Earnings Presentation (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.2)
- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Q1 2026 Earnings Call Summary
- 4Q25 Earnings Presentation (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.2)
- Citizens Financial Group Q4 Earnings Call Highlights
- Citizens Financial Group Named 'Bank of the Year' by The Banker
- 3Q25 Earnings Presentation (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.2)
- Citizens sees up to 20% efficiency gains through gen AI
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