Capital One, JPMorganChase and Bank of America are responsible for 75% of all AI-related patent filings since 2023.  

What’s more, U.S.-based banks are outpacing global peers when it comes to AI patent filings and are responsible for 85% of AI related patent filings through 2023, according to a recent report from think tank Evident AI, which tracked 1,516 patents filed by 21 banks since 2023. 

While patents are not required to be made public by the U.S. Patent Office until 18 months after they have been filed, they can be disclosed earlier by the financial institutions that have filed them. FIs filed more than 1,200 patents in 2023, but only the 200 or so disclosed by companies that filed for them in 2024 were included in Evident AI’s report.

Due to the lag in patent data, the report covers all filings from 2023 and some publicly available filings from 2024 and 2025, the report stated. 

The lead the three banking giants have can be attributed to their early focus on AI, which started multiple years ago, Alexandra Mousavizadeh, co-chief executive at Evident AI, told FinAi News.  

“Capital One and Bank of America were early AI patenting leaders, dramatically increasing focus from 2017 onward and demonstrating a sustained commitment to building institutional IP [intellectual property],” she said. “JPMorganChase ramped up activity slightly later — from 2020 — consolidating its position as the third major filer over the last three years.” 

The top 10 banks in order of most patents filed for AI-related patents through 2023 are: 

1. Capital One;  
2. Bank of America;  
3. JPMorgan Chase;  
4. TD Bank;  
5. Wells Fargo;  
6. Citigroup;  
7. US Bank;  
8. Morgan Stanley;  
9. Goldman Sachs; and  
10. PNC. 

“While patents aren’t the only marker of innovation in banking, they offer a signal of who is investing early to build proprietary AI capabilities,” Mousavizadeh said. “A few North American banks are investing aggressively in [intellectual property] to shape the next decade of AI, while others, particularly in Europe, are following a different playbook [of being adopters].” 

Some examples of AI patents filed by banks are: 

• Capital One for Adversarial AI to strengthen chatbot responses, and multi-factor authentication using vehicle data; 

•  Bank of America for synthetic personas to test chatbot systems, and gen AI-driven CAPTCHA tools; and 

• JPMorgan Chase for cloud-based agents that autonomously fix software issues 

Capital One filed 474 AI related patents in 2024, up 14% year over year, according to FinAi News’ prior reporting. The patents are related to functions including payments, chatbots, and kiosk related tech. 

Bank of America has filed 1,100 patents since 2022 for job functions including digital assistants and chatbots, according to our prior reporting. 

Agentic AI and gen AI patents trending

While most of the patents filed are for traditional AI or machine learning, the number of gen AI-driven patents filed has been increasing, Mousavizadeh said. These comprised 17% of total filings in 2023, up from 6% in 2022. 

“We expect gen AI patenting to continue to rise as the technology matures and becomes embedded in core products and processes across both banking and insurance,” she said. “That said, traditional machine-learning patents are likely to remain dominant in absolute terms for several years, given their broader applicability across pricing, risk, fraud, and operational systems.” 

Based on filing patterns, gen AI patents are unlikely to eclipse traditional ML in the medium term. However, hybrid systems that combine both broad categories of technique may be on the rise, Mousavizadeh said. 

The top categories for gen AI patent filings, according to the report, are:  

• Customer service;  

• Cybersecurity; and  

• Back office tools. 

Agentic AI is also being deployed by FIs at a rapid pace, but patent filing for those tools remain low thus far. Only eight banks have applied for agentic AI-related patents, according to the report. These include:  

• Bank of America; 
• Capital One 
• JPMorgan Chase;  
• TD Bank;  
• Wells Fargo;  
• Citigroup;  
• BNY Mellon; and  
• Barclays.

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