Customers Bank Partners With OpenAI to Become AI-Native Bank

Customers Bank has entered a multiyear strategic partnership with OpenAI to re-engineer its commercial banking operations. The collaboration embeds OpenAI technical teams onsite at the bank to develop custom AI capabilities for payments, deposits, and lending, specifically targeting the automation of collateral monitoring, digital account onboarding, and document collection.

Sam Sidhu, CEO of Customers Bank, demonstrated the firm's commitment to the technology by using an AI-generated clone of his voice to deliver prepared remarks during a first-quarter earnings call on April 25, 2026. Sidhu stated the initiative aims to transition the firm into an AI-native bank, decoupling business growth from workforce expansion to increase revenue per employee.

The bank has already seen significant gains from AI implementation, automating nearly half of its code and saving approximately 28,000 work hours. These efficiencies are intended to lower the bank's efficiency ratio from 49% to the low 40s. This partnership expands a relationship that began in 2023 with the deployment of ChatGPT Enterprise, with 75% of employees currently utilizing OpenAI-powered tools.