Dollar Bank taps Microsoft Copilot for personal assistants
Brent Wilson named VP of AI innovation as reorganization efforts accelerate
Dollar Bank is leaning into AI with Microsoft Copilot and leadership appointees that are up for the AI challenge.
With the pace of change surrounding the AI environment, “we recognized, we have to do some reorganization now,” Chief Information Officer Bill Fortwangler told FinAi News.
Previously, the bank targeted to expand its AI efforts in 2027, but AI is moving so quickly, it couldn’t wait, Fortwangler said.
Some of that reorganization included creation of a vice president of AI innovation role at the Pittsburgh-based, $11.9 billion bank, which was filled by Brent Wilson this month.
Wilson joined the community bank in 2018 and was an integral part of creating its AI strategy. His previous roles at the bank include vice president and director of infrastructure and end-user services and vice president.
With leadership in place, the next step was identifying the first AI use case, the need for AI-driven personal assistants, Wilson told FinAi News. The bank tapped Microsoft Copilot to add assistants.
Copilot Chat has been deployed to all 1,528 employees, a spokesperson told FinAi News.
Copilot enterprise licenses, however, have been deployed to 100 employees, Wilson told FinAi News.
“That group we’re really tightly tracking because it’s an investment,” he said.
The bank is monitoring time savings in these areas:
- Meeting summarization;
- Document summarization; and
- Drafting documents.
Additionally, Microsoft shares reports with the bank, tracking time and monetary savings, he said. For example, in the past month, the 100 people using Copilot have saved 1,000 hours of labor collectively.
Copilot in action
Groups putting Copilot to use include the audit team and the service desk.
The audit team is using Copilot to generate audit documents in a consistent way, Wilson said.
“They’re saving their prompts and making them very detailed so that they can generate audit documentation reliably,” he said.
Of the select group of 100 people using Copilot, 55% are considered power users, he said.
Power users are those who consistently integrate AI assistants into their daily workflows, beyond basic prompting, according to Microsoft.
“I want to get everybody to be a power user,” Wilson said.
Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas.
