In a move that showcases how quickly artificial intelligence is entering core banking operations, Pennsylvania-based Customers Bank CEO Sam Sidhu revealed that part of his prepared remarks during the firm’s first-quarter earnings call were delivered not by him, but by an AI-generated version of his voice.

“The prepared remarks you heard on my behalf today were delivered by my AI clone, not read by me,” Sidhu said during the call, describing it as a potential first for a public company earnings discussion.

The disclosure comes as the $25.9 billion-asset lender deepens its push into AI, signing a multi-year partnership with OpenAI to embed engineers within the bank and automate key operations, including lending and client onboarding, according to a report by CNBC.

Sidhu is positioning AI not just as a productivity tool but as a lever tied directly to financial performance. He said the initiative is expected to improve the bank’s efficiency ratio from about 49 to the low 40s, boosting returns as early as next year.

The partnership is structured as a co-development effort rather than a typical vendor relationship. “We’re going to be co-creating enterprise solutions they could potentially sell to other banks in the future,” Sidhu said. “The goal here is end-to-end, automated agentic-led workflow” for lending, deposits and payments.

For OpenAI, which has been increasingly targeting financial services as a key vertical, the collaboration offers access to real-world deployment inside a regulated banking environment. “We are proud to support Customers Bank as they build a more intelligent operating model that empowers employees, strengthens client service, and sets a new standard for regional banking,” said Denise Dresser in a statement.

From weeks to days

Customers Bank plans to roll out AI agents across lending, deposits and payments over the next six to 12 months. If successful, Sidhu said the time taken to close a commercial loan, currently 30 to 45 days, could shrink to about seven days, including underwriting, document collection and legal processing.

Similarly, onboarding for complex commercial clients, which can take more than a day, could be reduced to under 20 minutes using conversational AI and automated document handling.

“When you have an autonomous agent, you’re essentially creating a digital worker … and they can work around the clock,” Sidhu said.

The bank has already been experimenting with AI internally, with roughly half of its software code now being generated using AI tools. Sidhu said this has saved 28,000 hours of work so far, equivalent to avoiding the hiring of about 15 full-time employees.

“This is an opportunity for us to potentially slow that hiring … and do more revenue per employee,” he said.

Small bank, big advantage

Despite competing with much larger peers such as JPMorgan Chase, which has trillions of dollars in assets, Sidhu believes smaller banks have an edge in deploying AI more quickly due to lower complexity and lighter regulatory overhead.

“Smaller banks are not going to be expected to have the same level of frameworks as many of the larger banks,” he said, adding that regulators want regional lenders “to be able to compete with larger banks.”

Sidhu, who began his career at Goldman Sachs in 2004, said the bank is also exploring new AI-native business lines that would have been too costly to pursue earlier, with smaller teams overseeing automated systems that handle tasks previously done by large workforces.

The expanded partnership builds on an earlier relationship between the two firms that began in 2023 and now includes embedding OpenAI engineers directly into the bank’s workflows.

“It’s going to benefit our investors. It’s going to benefit our customers,” Sidhu said. “Our regulators will hopefully also be happier over time, because they’re going to see us reducing risk as well.”