Bank CEO used his voice clone to run earnings call before announcing OpenAI partnership to build a ‘digital workforce’

During a recent first-quarter earnings call, Customers Bank CEO Sam Sidhu pulled an unusual trick. About thirty minutes into the briefing, he explained to analysts that his prepared remarks were actually delivered by an artificial intelligence clone of his own voice, CNBC reported.

“The prepared remarks you heard from me today were not read by me, but were delivered by my artificial intelligence clone,” Sidhu said.

Sidhu later explained that the use of the AI-generated voice clone was not just a demonstration, but signaled a broader transformation underway at Customer Bank. Focusing on startups and small businesses, lenders are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to automate key functions and increase efficiency.

New partnership with OpenAI announced:

Reportedly, the $25.9 billion asset lender has signed a multi-year partnership with OpenAI; In this partnership, the AI ​​startup will place engineers at the bank to help automate lending, customer onboarding, and payments.

The deal is reportedly part of Sidhu’s effort to leapfrog other banks in the industry in the race to transform itself by using AI agents as a new digital workforce. The strategy is said to be based on automating core banking processes, such as reducing loan timelines from weeks to days and scaling growth without adding staff at the same pace.

Sidhu says the project will increase the bank’s efficiency ratio from around 49% to the low 40s and will also increase the bank’s return from next year.

He told CNBC that the relationship will be symbiotic. The two companies will co-create enterprise AI solutions that OpenAI has the potential to sell to other banks in the future, providing access to real-world use cases within a regulated financial institution.

For loans, deposits and payments, “the goal here is end-to-end, automated agent-managed workflow,” Sidhu said.

Meanwhile, OpenAI Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser told CNBC that the company is proud to help Customer Bank “build a smarter operating model that empowers employees, enhances customer service, and sets a new standard for regional banking.”

AI representatives will act as the digital workforce:

The bank plans to roll out these AI agents across the lending, deposits and payments sectors in the next six to 12 months. These tools are said to function as always-on digital workers that can perform tasks continuously.

If successful, the timeline for closing a commercial loan (including underwriting, document collection and legal negotiations) will drop from 45 days to approximately seven days. Similarly, the account opening process for complex business clients is expected to drop from more than a day to less than 20 minutes using conversational AI and automated document collection.

“When you have an autonomous agent, you are essentially creating a digital worker… and they can work at any time of the day,” Sidhu told the publication.

The bank is also already using AI to write half of the software code; The move has saved 28,000 hours of work so far, effectively offsetting the need to hire approximately 15 full-time employees.

“This is an opportunity for us to potentially slow down hiring and generate more revenue per employee,” Sidhu said.