Sunwest Bank is amping up its AI roadmap with a new chief technology officer and multiple proofs of concept in place. 

The $3.7 billion bank hired Ben Xiang as its executive vice president and chief technology and strategy officer in September. Xiang had served on the Sandy Spring, Utah-based bank’s board of directors since 2015.

The commercial bank has been modernizing its tech stack for nearly a decade, including slowly moving its operations to the cloud, and developing API platforms and digital tools, Xiang told FinAi News. 

“I know the bank’s tech strategy well and have been working on AI tech for nearly five years,” he said. 

Xiang had previously served as a strategic adviser and senior vice president of enterprise AI solutions at data service provider Veritone for nearly four years, gaining experience in building AI offerings for businesses, he said. 

AI and FTE  

The bank is focused on reducing operating costs with the use of AI as the first piece of the puzzle and will tackle growing revenue later, he said. The bank created a spreadsheet to track how much time each process takes and how AI can trim the time needed to complete those processes, he said. 

“We are really looking at the actual value of AI to the bank in FTE equivalent hours saved,” Xiang said. “We are really looking to save FTE equivalent hours so that we can redeploy those hours into new areas.” 

Sunwest has been working with Microsoft for years for its cloud and AI needs, Xiang said, adding that the bank is implementing early AI proofs of concept within its operations. 

The bank is piloting AI to: 

• Auto-fill forms and aid sales departments;  

• Verify documents for loan applications; and  

• Assist customer service channels. 

“A lot of these processes used to take hours … but with AI, we can fill out nearly 80% of forms within minutes,” he said. It is too early in the bank’s AI implementation process to share its efficiency gains, he added. 

Over the next 12 to 18 months, Sunwest is targeting double-digit percentage efficiency gains across multiple departments.  

Sunwest had 292 employees and an efficiency ratio of 59.3% at the end of Q4 2024, compared to 57.6% in Q4 2023. according to FinAi News’ proprietary data. 

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