Grasshopper Bank is training its employees to use AI to help identify applications of the tech at the digital bank. 

“On the AI side, our wins are coming from training our people,” Chief Executive Mike Butler told Bank Automation News. 

The goal is for 100% of the bank’s 145 employees to be trained to use AI, Butler said. For now, 75% have gone through at least one AI training session. 

AI “has to become part of the core fabric of how we do things,” Butler said, noting that it’s not enough for just a few employees to know how to use AI. 

When the entire organization has an AI mindset, more innovation and use cases can be uncovered, he said. 

From hours to minutes with automation

For example, within Small Business Administration lending, employees have identified that repetitive processes, like following up on missing documents, can be automated with AI, Butler said. A process that formerly took two to three hours now takes two to three minutes. 

Implementing AI in repetitive and time-consuming tasks is going to get the client faster response times,” he said, noting, “Time is always the issue with small businesses.” 

The $1.3 billion Grasshopper Bank is using AI to digitalize the lending process and has plans to use the tech to digitalize the funding process as well, Butler said.  

However, the shift to AI “has to start with the people.” 

The bank uses Google Gemini and has been training employees on AI for about a year, Butler said.  

Employee training is a priority, Butler said, noting that “AI won’t take your job, but somebody who knows how to utilize AI will.” 

Other FIs including Lloyds, Citizens Bank and ING Bank are also training employees to work with AI-driven tools. 

ING has begun mandatory AI training for employees in partnership with Google, Marnix van Stiphout, chief operations officer, told BAN.  

“The training intensity and length depends on job function levels, but all employees have to be AI-ready,” he said. 

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