Japanese Banking Giant Creates 'AI CEO' Using ChatGPT To Mimic Its Group Head: 'Sounds Like The Boss'

Author: Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee | August 07, 2025 03:30am

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (NYSE:SMFG) has launched a ChatGPT-powered "AI CEO" that employees can ping for guidance, meant to mimic the thinking of Group CEO Toru Nakashima.

What Happened: Built on OpenAI's GPT-4o model, the bot draws on a year of Nakashima's remarks, third-party profiles and internal documents so replies "sound like the boss," the bank said. Staff can chat with a text version of the “AI CEO” today, with an animated avatar slated to be launched for in-house events later this year.

SMBC says it hopes the casual Q&A format will normalize AI collaboration across its 100,000-plus workforce and speed decision-making.

The lender is also building an "AI Boss" that will mine product data, transaction histories and veteran bankers' know-how to suggest sales strategies. Pilot use begins in fiscal 2025, part of a 50 billion Yen ($320 million) generative-AI budget carved from SMBC's 800 billion Yen digital outlay plan. Executives say the tools should free staff to focus on complex deals while spreading corporate culture to new hires.

Why It Matters: Banks worldwide are making similar moves. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is testing ‘Quest IndexGPT,’ a client-facing fund-selection engine that mimics robo-advice. Morgan Stanley's (NYSE:MS) wealth unit lets advisers query 100,000 research reports through a GPT-4 assistant.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) says more than 90% of its workers now lean on an internal version of its "Erica" AI, part of a $4 billion push in April. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) researchers, meanwhile, forecast AI "agents" could lift global software revenue to $780 billion by 2030.

Consumer offerings are multiplying, too. BofA's public-facing Erica logged two billion interactions more than a year back, while Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) is shifting 260 apps to Google Cloud to roll out generative models at scale. SMBC’s Japanese peers, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:MFG) and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:MUFG) have added GPT search portals for loan officers, according to industry filings.

Price Action: SMFG shares were trading higher by 1.78% higher at $15.46 after markets closed on Thursday.

Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings indicate Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. has a Momentum in the 69th percentile and Growth in the 79th percentile. Check here to see how other Japanese banking stocks rank in terms of these metrics.