# Fifth Third Bancorp: AI strategy

Source: https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/fifth-third/ai-strategy
Last updated: Oct 16, 2026

*Part of the [Fifth Third Bancorp AI strategy profile](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/fifth-third).*

## What is Fifth Third's AI strategy?

Fifth Third treats AI as an incremental tool inside a 'stability, profitability and growth' playbook rather than a reinvention. Chief strategy officer Ben Hoffman set out four workstreams in May 2025 (AI for employees, for engineers, for the bank's processes and for the customer) and, per The Financial Brand's reading of the bank's annual report, Fifth Third spent a year building an AI risk-management framework before enabling live use cases; CIO Jude Schramm calls the result 'enterprise-viable AI' and buys more than he builds. The numbers are now disclosed: on the July 17, 2026 call CEO Tim Spence reported more than 1 million AI prompts by colleagues in June, a 45% prompt accepted rate for new code and over 87% of unit testing automated, and said the bank intends 'to accelerate the pace of investments that we make in AI' after the Comerica conversion, which finished over Labor Day weekend 2026 with an AI monitoring layer. The July 2026 investor deck describes commercial payments moving from automation to 'agentic work' and lists 'Agentic Jeanie' and AI-powered universal search as 2026 milestones; Newline launched a Model Context Protocol server for AI agents in December 2025, which Spence called a first among U.S. banks. The 2025 10-K warns that AI, built in-house or supplied by third or fourth parties, could significantly affect internal controls. ([The Financial Brand](https://thefinancialbrand.com/news/banking-technology/in-crypto-and-ai-fifth-third-balances-innovation-excitement-with-practical-application-189041), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm), [American Banker](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/fifth-thirds-cio-jude-schramm-is-28-on-the-most-innovative-people-in-finance-ranking), [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2024/12/04/fifth-third-cio-ai-buy-rather-than-build/), [Motley Fool (Yahoo Finance)](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/fifth-third-fitb-q2-2026-002717146.html), [Fifth Third](https://53.com/content/fifth-third/en/media-center/press-releases/2026/press-release-2026-09-08.html), [Investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-fifth-third-bancorp-beats-q4-2025-eps-forecast-93CH-4455871), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000124/fitb-20251231.htm))

## What have Fifth Third's executives said about AI, and when?

In date order. Quotes and figures as the cited source carries them; the bank has not published a standalone AI strategy document.

| Date | Who | What was said | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| December 4, 2024 | Jude Schramm, CIO | JPMorgan's CIO has 'a budget that's 20x mine', so Fifth Third leans into partnerships and does 'a little bit more buy than build'; Microsoft Copilot at about 14,000 workers (about 5,000 daily) and GitHub Copilot at nearly 450 engineers; humans stay in the loop and generative AI is not yet used with external customers | [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2024/12/04/fifth-third-cio-ai-buy-rather-than-build/) |
| January 16, 2025 | Jude Schramm, CIO | Four AI pillars: empowering employees, enhancing engineering, streamlining business processes and improving customer interactions; a dedicated AI group covers generative AI and intelligent automation | [Forbes](https://forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2025/01/16/fifth-third-banks-cio-on-ai-cloud-and-customer-centric-innovation) |
| May 12, 2025 | Ben Hoffman, chief strategy officer | Four workstreams (AI for employees, engineers, the bank and the customer); 'Our job is not to radically reinvent what it is to be a bank'; The Financial Brand, citing the annual report, says the bank spent a year building an AI risk-management framework before enabling live use cases | [The Financial Brand](https://thefinancialbrand.com/news/banking-technology/in-crypto-and-ai-fifth-third-balances-innovation-excitement-with-practical-application-189041) |
| January 20, 2026 | Tim Spence, CEO, and Bryan Preston, CFO (Q4 2025 call) | Newline launched a Model Context Protocol server giving AI agents secure, standardized access to its API and documentation, 'a key building block to support future Agentic Commerce applications and a first among U.S. banks'; value-stream automation reached $200 million of annualized savings | [Investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-fifth-third-bancorp-beats-q4-2025-eps-forecast-93CH-4455871) |
| March 11, 2026 | Tim Spence, CEO (Bloomberg) | AI's ability to lower costs is 'pretty remarkable'; 'we should experiment more than maybe we have historically'; AI is writing about 40% of the bank's code | [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/fifth-third-sees-pretty-remarkable-outcome-of-ai-to-lower-cost), [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-03-11/fifth-third-ceo-ai-writing-40-of-code-video) |
| April 9, 2026 | Jay Plum, head of consumer lending | AI will help banks 'out-code' vendors and erode reliance on core providers | [American Banker](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/fifth-third-official-ai-will-help-banks-out-code-vendors) |
| June 1, 2026 | Jude Schramm, CIO | 'Enterprise-viable AI'; about 1,000 engineers on AI tools; 2026 priorities include AI in lending and credit processes and a multilingual chatbot; on agents touching deposit and loan systems, 'we've got to be really intentional' | [American Banker](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/fifth-thirds-cio-jude-schramm-is-28-on-the-most-innovative-people-in-finance-ranking) |
| July 17, 2026 | Tim Spence, CEO (Q2 2026 call) | More than 1 million prompts in June; 45% prompt accepted rate for new code; over 87% of unit testing automated by AI; 'We do intend to accelerate the pace of investments that we make in AI' | [Motley Fool (Yahoo Finance)](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/fifth-third-fitb-q2-2026-002717146.html) |
| October 12, 2026 | Jay Budzik, SVP (AI scientists) | The bank plans to expand its balance sheet by billions by moving lending models to AI and to automate paper-based document processing | [Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering](https://mccormick.northwestern.edu/computer-science/news-events/news/articles/2026/alum-spotlight-jay-budzik.html) |

## What AI milestones does Fifth Third show investors?

From the 'Evolution of Fifth Third' and commercial payments slides of the July 30, 2026 Boston roadshow deck filed with the SEC, plus the Q2 2026 earnings deck.

| Year | Milestone as the deck states it | Area | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2018 | Southeast expansion began, 'enabled by geospatial analytics' | Branch network | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm) |
| 2020 | MyDay and Jeanie chatbot introduced | Consumer digital | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm) |
| 2022 | Cloud-native mobile app launched; Value Stream program began | Technology and efficiency | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm) |
| 2023 | Released AI-powered Jeanie 2.0 and the Newline platform | Consumer and commercial | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm) |
| 2025 | Improved Jeanie 3.0 released | Consumer digital | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm) |
| 2026 | Agentic Jeanie; universal search powered by AI; 'intuitive AI-powered navigation experience' launched in Q2 | Consumer digital | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000193/fifththirdbancorppresent.htm), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000219/a2026barclaysconference-.htm) |
| 2010-2025 and beyond | Commercial payments 'evolving from: outsourcing, automation, agentic work', 'deliberately moving from providing tools customers use to manage finances to delivering solutions that complete the jobs for them'; 'Future Agentic Solutions' | Commercial payments | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000197/a2026bostonroadshow-fina.htm) |

## How does Fifth Third govern AI, and what is not on the record?

The governance the bank describes is risk-first and incremental. The Financial Brand reported in May 2025, citing the bank's annual report, that Fifth Third spent a year building an AI risk-management framework before enabling any live use case, and described Hoffman's pace as deliberate, with risk controls and governance in place. The 2024 10-K said emerging technologies such as generative models and AI may add operational risk that is managed 'with appropriate oversight and governance by the second line of defense'; the 2025 10-K adds that AI, developed internally or provided by third- or fourth-party service providers, could have a significant impact on the effectiveness of internal controls, and that leaders received generative AI training in 2025. ([The Financial Brand](https://thefinancialbrand.com/news/banking-technology/in-crypto-and-ai-fifth-third-balances-innovation-excitement-with-practical-application-189041), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552725000079/fitb-20241231.htm), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000124/fitb-20251231.htm))

Customer-facing generative AI has been held back on purpose. Fortune reported in December 2024 that the bank had not yet adopted generative AI for external customers, and chief marketing officer Melissa Stevens said in October 2026 that Fifth Third deliberately kept generative AI away from customers, choosing accuracy over personality. The June 2026 app interface is pitched as a foundation for 'future agentic experiences where customers can ask the bank to take action'. ([Fortune](https://fortune.com/2024/12/04/fifth-third-cio-ai-buy-rather-than-build/), [The Financial Brand](https://thefinancialbrand.com/banking-podcasts/fifth-third-succeeds-through-empowered-employees), [Fifth Third via FT Markets](https://markets.ft.com/data/announce/detail?dockey=600-202606170800BIZWIRE_USPRX____20260617_BW555789-1))

Not disclosed: an AI budget or AI capex figure, a chief AI officer (the CIO owns the agenda), a published responsible-AI principles document, and any third-party audit of Jeanie or the lending models. The bank's AI-written-code figures come in two forms (Spence's 40% on Bloomberg TV in March 2026 and a 45% prompt accepted rate on the July call) and are not the same measure. ([American Banker](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/fifth-thirds-cio-jude-schramm-is-28-on-the-most-innovative-people-in-finance-ranking), [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-03-11/fifth-third-ceo-ai-writing-40-of-code-video), [Motley Fool (Yahoo Finance)](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/fifth-third-fitb-q2-2026-002717146.html))

## What does the Fifth Third profile record on this topic?

| Date | Move | Detail | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sep 15, 2026 | Barclays conference: AI in the conversion, bilingual Jeanie and search usage doubles | COO Jamie Leonard says Jeanie now handles all intents in Spanish and English, and search and Jeanie activity doubled in the first week for former Comerica customers; AI was used for conversion monitoring, code writing and due-diligence savings work. | [Investing.com](https://investing.com/news/transcripts/fifth-third-at-barclays-conference-comerica-deal-lifts-growth-plans-93CH-4901613) |
| Sep 14, 2026 | Investor deck lists 'Agentic Jeanie' as a 2026 milestone | Barclays conference presentation: 'Agentic Jeanie & universal search powered by AI' in the bank's two-decade timeline; about 25,200 employees and $300 billion of assets after Comerica. | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000219/a2026barclaysconference-.htm) |
| Aug 4, 2026 | Q2 2026 10-Q: AI only in the forward-looking risk list | The filing lists 'inability to implement technology system enhancements, including the use of artificial intelligence' among factors that could change results; the Q1 10-Q (5 May) carries the same line. The detailed AI risk factors sit in the 2025 10-K. | [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000202/fitb-20260630.htm), [Fifth Third (SEC filing)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35527/000003552726000182/fitb-20260331.htm) |
| Jul 17, 2026 | Q2 2026 call: AI metrics for engineering and a pledge to accelerate AI spend | 1 million-plus prompts in June; 45% prompt accepted rate for new code; 87%-plus of unit testing automated by AI; an AI 'intelligence layer' monitoring the Comerica conversion. | [Motley Fool (Yahoo Finance)](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/fifth-third-fitb-q2-2026-002717146.html) |
| Apr 17, 2026 | Q1 2026 call: Plaid on Newline, tight limits on AI-infrastructure lending | Plaid launched a payment product on Newline alongside Stripe and Circle; Spence calls the tech conversion the largest transaction risk and plans three or four mock conversions; software loans are under 1% of the book and funded data-centre exposure under $100 million. | [earnings call transcript (The Motley Fool)](https://fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/04/17/fifth-third-fitb-q1-2026-earnings-transcript), [Investing.com](https://investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-fifth-third-bancorp-beats-eps-forecasts-in-q1-2026-93CH-4621035), [American Banker](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/fifth-third-ceo-on-comerica-integration-so-far-so-good) |
| Apr 9, 2026 | 'AI will help banks out-code vendors' | Consumer lending head Jay Plum on eroding reliance on core providers and continuous 'mini reviews' for exams. | [American Banker](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/fifth-third-official-ai-will-help-banks-out-code-vendors) |
| Mar 11, 2026 | Spence: AI is writing 40% of the bank's code | Bloomberg Open Interest interview: AI is helping the bank double in size with fewer employees, and the next phase is AI that executes financial tasks for customers. | [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-03-11/fifth-third-ceo-ai-writing-40-of-code-video) |
| Mar 11, 2026 | Spence: AI cost results 'pretty remarkable' | Banks should experiment more, the CEO tells Bloomberg TV. | [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/fifth-third-sees-pretty-remarkable-outcome-of-ai-to-lower-cost) |
| Jan 16, 2025 | Four AI pillars and an Enterprise Data Office | Schramm names four pillars (empowering employees, enhancing engineering, streamlining business processes, improving customer interactions); the Enterprise Data Office governs AI deployments and a dedicated AI group handles generative AI and intelligent automation. | [Forbes](https://forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2025/01/16/fifth-third-banks-cio-on-ai-cloud-and-customer-centric-innovation) |
| Dec 4, 2024 | CIO: buy-partner-build, with Copilot at scale | Microsoft Copilot deployed to about 14,000 workers (about 5,000 daily users) and GitHub Copilot to about 450 engineers; humans stay in the loop and generative AI is not yet used with external customers. | [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2024/12/04/fifth-third-cio-ai-buy-rather-than-build/) |

## Common questions

### Does Fifth Third have a chief AI officer?

No chief AI officer is named in its filings or releases. Chief information officer Jude Schramm owns the enterprise AI agenda he calls 'enterprise-viable AI'; Ben Hoffman, chief strategy officer and head of consumer products, fronts Jeanie and the app; Jay Budzik, a senior vice president, manages the AI scientists across consumer products and central operations.

### How much is Fifth Third spending on AI?

The bank does not disclose an AI budget. What is on the record: CEO Tim Spence said on the July 17, 2026 call that Fifth Third intends to accelerate AI investment once the Comerica systems conversion is done, and the CIO has said JPMorgan's technology budget is about 20 times his, which is why Fifth Third buys and partners more than it builds.

### What are Fifth Third's AI workstreams?

Ben Hoffman described four in May 2025: AI for employees (productivity), AI for engineers (first drafts of code and automating routine engineering work), AI for the bank (process improvement such as automating call-centre notes after each contact) and AI for the customer (better products and experiences, including a generative chatbot). The CIO's January 2025 list of four pillars covers the same ground.

### Is Fifth Third building agentic AI?

Yes, in stages. Newline launched a Model Context Protocol server for AI agents in December 2025 and added Skills in April 2026; the July 2026 investor deck lists 'Agentic Jeanie' as a 2026 milestone and describes commercial payments moving toward 'agentic work'; and the Brex partnership gives commercial card clients Brex's AI agents. The CIO says agents touching core deposit and loan systems need to be 'really intentional'.

### How did AI figure in the Comerica deal?

Fifth Third built an AI monitoring layer over the conversion plan that tracked the thousands of checklist items and flagged slips, according to CFO Bryan Preston. The conversion finished over Labor Day weekend 2026, moving about 600,000 customers' accounts and 293 banking centres, and management said the freed-up labour hours would go into sales and further AI use cases.
## Deeper on Fifth Third

- [What AI patents, research and partnerships does Fifth Third have?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/fifth-third/ai-research-patents-partnerships)
- [What is Jeanie, and how does Fifth Third use AI in its virtual assistant?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/fifth-third/virtual-assistant)
- [How does Fifth Third use AI in payments?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/fifth-third/payments-ai)
- [What technology stack does Fifth Third run?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/fifth-third/technology-stack)


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