HSBC has announced the appointment of David Rice as its first chief AI officer.

Rice was previously chief operating officer for HSBC’s corporate and institutional banking business, where he was responsible for day-to-day operations and leading the bank’s work on emerging technologies and business models.

He joined HSBC in 2006 and has held a series of senior roles across different regions during his time with the bank.

HSBC said the newly created role is intended to provide clear group-level leadership for AI adoption and to support its plans to embed AI solutions that benefit both employees and customers.

The appointment comes as part of a wider focus by HSBC on deploying AI across the business, including making generative AI tools available to staff to simplify processes, procedures and policies, and equipping customer-facing employees with tools to deliver more personalised services.

Georges Elhedery, group chief executive of HSBC, said that customers increasingly expect their bank to quickly deliver services aligned to their specific needs and that AI will play a key role in how HSBC delivers these services.

“Our ambition here is simple – we will empower our colleagues to use AI to create a personalised experience for each customer, deliver it safely, in real time and at scale, while keeping human judgement, decision-making and accountability at the core,” he said. “David will be instrumental in helping us realise our ambition in this area.”

HSBC also announced it is expanding the remit of Mario Shamtani in his role as chief technology officer to strengthen its technology foundations to deploy AI at scale.

His role now includes modernising core platforms, building a central AI platform that employees can use to access a range of models, and leading key strategic partnerships.

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