At RBC, we view AI as a generational opportunity to transform the future of banking, empower our more than 100,000 employees to work smarter and faster, drive operational efficiencies and improve client experiences. An early adopter in the AI space, RBC is a recognized leader in AI for financial services, ranking #1 in Canada and #3 globally for AI maturity in the Evident AI Index. In 2025, the bank outlined its bold ambition to derive up to $1 billion in enterprise value from AI by 2027. Building on this momentum, RBC is preparing for a future where AI will play a greater role in how we deliver experiences to our clients and enhance how we work, while keeping compliance and security at the forefront of our innovations.

A key driver in our plans is to leverage generative and agentic AI to redefine developer productivity across the entire application lifecycle. Our expansive development community is already using AI-driven capabilities to reduce repetitive tasks which provides more time to build and validate solutions and accelerate code modernization, test case generation, and incident analysis and resolution.

AI companions and agents are further equipping RBC technologists with tools and new delivery workflows to remove routine tasks, help drive delivery quality, free up time for creativity and innovation, and accelerate the delivery of leading experiences and products to RBC’s 19 million clients in 29 countries.

Working with IBM to facilitate core application while maintaining security and compliance in developer workflows

The growing integration of AI tools into developer workflows creates the need to adhere to industry-leading standards for security, compliance, and performance which align with RBC’s responsible AI principles. Integrating IBM’s AI-driven tools into our hybrid multi-cloud DevSecOps pipelines helps ensure compliance and mitigates security concerns:

  • Streamlining maintenance and modernization
    IBM’s watsonx Code Assistant for Z uses AI-powered agents that proactively identify dependencies, data flows, structure and organization of existing applications, creating an in-depth blueprint for the modernization and management of changes to core system applications. This information is essential to facilitating the safe introduction of new capabilities, as well as the refactoring of applications to align with modern architecture and resolve vulnerabilities, compliance gaps, and framework evolution issues. Using this tool, RBC developers can create concise code change plans designed to increase flexibility and simplify maintenance and management of applications, increasing RBC’s overall system resilience.
  • Observing and auto-remediating for infrastructure robustness
    In similar ways, our developers are exploring the usage of IBM Concert to monitor deployed applications in real time to rapidly detect and better address potential critical vulnerabilities in their composition. It uses adaptative intelligent ranking based on multiple operational deployment and access parameters to properly qualify potential risk and exposures for the scheduling of recovery actions. With this integration, RBC will achieve system-wide visibility into our environments.

The productivity dividend

Working with industry leaders like IBM enhances RBC’s vision for intelligent operations and improved productivity on every element of the application lifecycle across all bank functions. A hybrid cloud deployment model with on-premises and on-cloud deployment flexibility, while ensuring consistent regulatory and operational compliance controls during the construction of applications, is what makes this approach possible.

RBC’s AI developer productivity initiatives are already driving tangible gains including:

  • Improved time-to-market: Improved development productivity, testing cycles, and standardized automated deployment capabilities allows RBC to reduce its “idea-to-code” cycle, enabling quicker responsiveness to market demands.
  • Risk mitigation: The proactive detection and resolution of security and compliance risks improves system reliability and reduces operational risks.
  • Sustainable innovation: Mainframe developers use IBM’s watsonx Code Assistant for Z to analyze and understand code more effectively, identify optimizations, and generate high coverage test cases for COBOL. By empowering application understanding, reducing IT skills gaps, and assisting on optimization, RBC’s developers can focus on high-value innovation, while maintaining the safety and compliance of mainframe systems.

Looking ahead: A blueprint for the future of banking

From innovation to optimization, AI is setting a new benchmark in financial services. By embedding AI across the application development lifecycle, RBC is not only enhancing productivity but also building a sustainable foundation for long-term growth.

This article offers general information only and is not intended as legal, financial or other professional advice. A professional advisor should be consulted regarding your specific situation. While information presented is believed to be factual and current, its accuracy is not guaranteed and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subject matter discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the author(s) as of the date of publication and are subject to change. No endorsement of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressly given or implied by Royal Bank of Canada or its affiliates.