In 2018, Bank of America launched an AI-driven assistant called Erica inside its mobile app. It turned out not to be a one-off feature, but rather the foundation of the company’s AI strategy.
BofA went on to tap the underlying architecture of Erica for various use cases across the business, including both for customers and employees. Now seven years—and an uncountable number of AI breakthroughs—later, Bank of America is still leveraging that initial AI build-out. It’s all part of its “build once, reuse” AI strategy.
This doesn’t mean the company is operating with decades-old AI; the platform underlying Erica was designed to be adaptable to future AI models and breakthroughs. At the same time, there was no denying that the generative AI explosion was an inflection point. Bank of America experimented with other approaches and offerings, but ultimately decided to use what it had, double down, and yet again build once for the years to come. In 2025, BofA reinvested in the Erica architecture and built a second generation platform for the new AI era.
“We’ve learned, in a way the hard way, and over time, that by investing in a foundation and these capabilities, the third and fourth and fifth build is much faster,” said Hari Gopalkrishnan, chief technology and information officer at Bank of America.
