What is OCBC's AI strategy?
OCBC frames AI as part of a wider shift rather than a strategy of its own. 'We don't really have an AI strategy per se,' Group CEO Tan Teck Long said on August 7, 2026; the bank follows an 'ADD' approach that combines AI, digitalisation and data analytics to redesign processes, and Tan said he was not 'a big fan of (generative) AI everything', preferring simpler AI where it costs less to compute. ADD is the 'Tech Shift' in The Next Frontier, the corporate strategy set out in February 2026, backed by more than S$1 billion a year of technology spending over three years and a plan to hire 600 relationship managers. Strategy chief Melvyn Low calls AI 'not a standalone initiative but an institutional capability'. The foundations are old: an AI unit set up in 2018, the first at a Singapore bank, now a Group Data Office whose models make about six million decisions a day. The 2024 annual report set 2027 targets, including 75% of customer service requests AI-assisted and a doubling of AI-attributable revenue. In February 2026 Tan said agentic AI 'may not be ready'; by July the bank had launched an avatar wealth app and the HELIOS agent platform. OCBC publishes no AI value figure.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Data as of Oct 16, 2026 · OCBC profile updated Oct 13, 2026 · 24 sources cited on this page · 140 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
What have OCBC's executives said about AI, and when?
In date order. Words in quotation marks are as published by the cited source.
| Date | Who | What was said | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 24, 2023 | Donald MacDonald, head of Group Data Office | OCBC is one of the first banks in the world to deploy generative AI tools at scale; AI already made more than four million decisions a day, expected to reach 10 million by 2025 | The Straits Times[10] |
| November 6, 2024 | Donald MacDonald | Generative AI was focused on staff productivity, with no direct customer interaction yet because of hallucination and adversarial-prompting risks; staff used the bank's Gen AI tools about 500,000 times a month; all AI tools are built in-house with open-source tools | The Business Times (Future of Finance)[11] |
| March 25, 2025 | 2024 annual report | Targets for 2027: 75% of customer service requests AI-assisted, every employee supported by AI, a 20% rise in staff productivity and a twofold increase in AI-attributable revenue | Annual report[6] |
| November 11, 2025 | Praveen Raina, head of group operations and technology | AI makes bespoke advisory possible for all customer segments, 'transforming what was once a premium offering into a universal standard' | The Business Times[12] |
| December 2, 2025 | Praveen Raina | AI is now embedded 'in almost everything we do'; in a Hong Kong project retiring Cobol, AI cut the expected migration timeline by up to three years, with 'at least 40 to 50 per cent of the work' already done | The Business Times (The Banker)[13] |
| February 25, 2026 | Tan Teck Long, Group CEO | Agentic AI, while promising, may not be ready today; the bank is 'AI-ready, so that when the AI technology is mature, we will plug it into our system' | Q4 2025 results briefing (The Straits Times)[7] |
| March 30, 2026 | Melvyn Low, group chief strategy and transformation officer | 'AI is not a standalone initiative but an institutional capability, embedded in all our processes'; 'AI should not just be transformational, but also trusted' | OCBC branded content in The Business Times[4] |
| July 1, 2026 | Tan Teck Long | 'Instead of thinking that AI will reduce our workforce, we hope to use it to increase the workforce and support a much larger business'; declined to say how OCBC will measure the return on AI | Fortune[14] |
| August 7, 2026 | Tan Teck Long | 'We don't really have an AI strategy per se'; AI is deployed selectively under the ADD approach; not 'a big fan of (generative) AI everything' | Q2 2026 results (The Business Times)[1] |
What has OCBC committed to under its AI, digital and data shift?
Commitments and scale figures as the bank and the press reported them.
| Item | Commitment or figure | As of |
|---|---|---|
| The Next Frontier | AI, Digital and Data is the 'Tech Shift', one of four shifts in the corporate strategy; capital to be allocated to ADD investments | February 2026[2][7] |
| Technology spend | More than S$1 billion a year over the next three years, including AI | July 1, 2026[3] |
| Hiring | 600 relationship managers over three years alongside the avatar app | July 1, 2026[3][14] |
| 2027 targets | 75% of service requests AI-assisted; every employee supported by AI; staff productivity up 20%; AI-attributable revenue doubled | March 25, 2025[6] |
| Scale of AI in operations | About 400 models in the AI lab; more than six million decisions a day | October 2025 to January 2026[15][5] |
| Use cases | More than 300 AI use cases and over 30 Gen AI applications | End-2024[6] |
| Skills | About three in five employees took an AI, digital or data programme each year from 2023 to 2025 | March 2026[4] |
What has OCBC not disclosed about the value of its AI?
OCBC publishes no AI economic-value figure and no separate AI budget. Tan said in July 2026 that the energy spent quantifying AI's benefits 'may be equal to the amount of time we take to roll out new AI initiatives'. The 2025 annual report does not restate the 2027 targets, and no figure for AI-attributable revenue has been published.[14][2][6]
Where results are given, they are task-level and partly attributed. Head of global consumer financial services Sunny Quek said in August 2026 that wealth advisers who took the Gen AI training saw productivity rise almost 50% and appointment-setting about 50%, and The Business Times noted OCBC does not attribute all of those gains solely to AI.[1]
What does the OCBC profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the OCBC Bank AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 13, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 24 dated moves, 14 use cases and 32 sources.
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 7, 2026 | Q2 2026 results: record S$2.22 billion profit, AI cited as a productivity lever | On the results call the group CEO recapped the WoW launch, the Gen AI training programme and HELIOS; a summary of the call says management is using AI selectively with an emphasis on cost discipline. The results release quotes Tan saying AI and related technology sectors continue to register strong growth. | [16][17][18] |
| Jul 1, 2026 | OCBC WoW avatar banking and a S$1 billion-a-year technology budget | Launch of the AI-native app with avatars Wendy and Wayne, beta for 50 invited Premier Private Client customers; Tan said OCBC expects to spend north of S$1 billion a year on technology and will hire 600 relationship managers over three years. | [8][3][19] |
| Apr 23, 2026 | OCBC headcount fell 1% in 2025 | The Business Times tally of DBS, OCBC and UOB found OCBC staff down from 33,656 to 33,323. OCBC's head of talent acquisition, total rewards, risk and compliance said hiring followed growth areas and roles would evolve with new technology; the banks did not attribute the declines to AI. | [20] |
| Mar 10, 2026 | 2025 annual report: Next Frontier strategy and agentic source-of-wealth tool | Reports agentic AI in Bank of Singapore's KYC workflow (up to 10 days to about one hour), 20-30% less engineer coding and testing effort, an AI copilot for corporate relationship managers cutting preparation time by up to 30%, and about three in five employees trained in AI, digital or data over three years. | [2] |
| Feb 25, 2026 | Next Frontier strategy launched; Tan says agentic AI may not be ready | At the Q4 2025 briefing the new CEO set out four shifts including a tech shift built on AI, digital and data, with the cost-to-income ratio held at low to mid 40 per cent. He said some AI technologies were mature enough to have created business synergies, but agentic AI, while promising, may not be ready today. The Business Times reported the bank would invest in using AI internally. | [7][21] |
| Jan 1, 2026 | Tan Teck Long becomes Group CEO and Carina Lee Group CRO | Tan succeeded Helen Wong. Lee, previously group chief credit officer for global wholesale banking, became Group Chief Risk Officer on the same date. | [2][22] |
| Nov 7, 2025 | OCBC says technology has not required releasing staff | At an earnings briefing, CEO Helen Wong said that with the use of technology OCBC had not seen a need to release people, while DBS said it would not hire for roles AI will replace. | [23] |
| Jul 11, 2025 | Tan Teck Long named Group CEO | OCBC announced Tan, then head of global wholesale banking, would succeed Helen Wong on 1 January 2026 and made him deputy CEO immediately. | [22] |
| Mar 25, 2025 | 2024 annual report sets 2027 AI targets | The report aims for 75% of customer service requests to be AI-assisted, every employee supported by AI, a 20% rise in staff productivity and a twofold increase in AI-attributable revenue by 2027. It counts more than 300 AI use cases and more than 30 Gen AI applications, records the June 2024 launch of the A.I. Oscar stock picker, and places the AI Lab in the Group Strategy and Transformation Office. | [6][24] |
Does OCBC have an AI strategy?
Not as a stand-alone strategy, by its CEO's account. Tan Teck Long said on August 7, 2026 that 'we don't really have an AI strategy per se'; OCBC instead runs an 'ADD' approach of AI, digitalisation and data analytics, which is the Tech Shift in its Next Frontier corporate strategy announced in February 2026. Strategy chief Melvyn Low describes AI as an institutional capability embedded in all processes.
How much is OCBC spending on AI?
OCBC said in July 2026 that it expects to spend more than S$1 billion a year on technology, including AI, over the next three years. It does not break out an AI budget. Fortune described the figure as spending on AI; the bank's own and Business Times reporting describe it as technology spending.
What AI targets has OCBC set?
The 2024 annual report, published in March 2025, set four goals for 2027: 75% of customer service requests AI-assisted, every employee supported by AI, a 20% rise in staff productivity and a twofold increase in revenue attributable to AI. The 2025 annual report does not restate them, and OCBC has not reported progress against the revenue goal.
What has OCBC's CEO said about agentic AI?
On February 25, 2026 Tan Teck Long said agentic AI, while promising, may not be ready and that OCBC would plug it in once the technology matured. Bank of Singapore's agentic Source of Wealth Assistant had already launched in June 2025, and on July 29, 2026 OCBC announced HELIOS, a five-agent platform for private banking due diligence with humans keeping final accountability.
Will AI cut jobs at OCBC?
OCBC says no. Tan said in July 2026 that the bank hopes to use AI to increase the workforce and support a larger business, and it plans to hire 600 relationship managers over three years. Former CEO Helen Wong said in November 2025 that technology had not created a need to release people. Group headcount fell 1% in 2025, which neither the bank nor The Business Times attributed to AI.
- OCBC raises 2026 loan growth forecast after Q2 profit jumps 22%, lifts dividend
- OCBC Annual Report 2025
- OCBC rolls out AI-native banking, to hire 600 relationship managers in wealth push
- Inside local bank's AI engine: From smarter security to personalised banking, at scale (OCBC branded content)
- Bank of Singapore deploys agentic AI tool to automate writing of source of wealth reports
- OCBC Annual Report 2024
- OCBC Q4 profit up 3% while full-year dips 2%; bank cautious on outlook
- OCBC unveils avatar banking to transform customer journeys
- OCBC harnesses agentic AI to sharpen and quicken onboarding of wealthy customers
- OCBC to deploy generative AI bot for all 30,000 staff globally
- Transforming the banking experience with generative AI (Future of Finance 2024)
- Pushing the boundaries of AI (Future of Finance 2025)
- Why AI is now embedded 'in almost everything we do': OCBC's Praveen Raina
- OCBC rolls out its 'avatar banking' platform with 'Wendy' and 'Wayne,' two virtual financial advisors
- Inside Singapore's AI bootcamp to retrain 35,000 bankers
- Earnings call transcript: OCBC posts record Q2 2026 profit as shares near high
- OCBC Q2 profit jumps 22%, shareholders get 47-cent dividend
- OCBC Group First Half 2026 Net Profit Grew 13% to a Record S$4.19 billion
- OCBC rolls out AI avatars for wealth management (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-05)
- DBS, OCBC, UOB shed nearly 3,000 jobs in 2025 amid restructuring, productivity push
- OCBC's new CEO Tan Teck Long pivots to Asean, wealth integration in new growth road map
- OCBC appoints Tan Teck Long as Group Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Helen Wong
- Singapore's DBS girds for AI as tellers morph into bankers
- Annual Report 2024 | Creating Value Through AI, Transforming for the Future (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-05)
When OCBC moves on AI, you'll read it here first.
when one of the banks we cover moves on AI, it is in the next morning's brief · six sourced stories · 7 am ET · free
plus every tracker, bank and agent page update, the morning after · leave any morning