BofA’s AI virtual assistant Erica halves IT service desk calls

It plans to incorporate gen AI in Erica for coding assistance and report synthesis.

Bank of America said that its use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning has improved tech and employee support for its 213,000 employees and over 20 million clients globally.

Its AI-driven virtual financial assistant, Erica, has reportedly helped reduced calls into the IT service desk by more than 50%, BofA said in a press release.

Erica was first launched in 2018 as a virtual financial assistant in the Bofa Mobile app. Since then, clients have interacted with Erica over 2.5 billion times, and over 20 million clients now use the virtual assistant.

In 2020, BofA launched Erica for employees, granting its staff technology support in the areas of mobile device password reset and device activation, and later in reviewing health benefits, locating payroll and tax forms.

Over 90% of employees use Erica for Employees in 2025, BofA said.

The bank shared plans to expand Erica’s capabilities in 2025 to offer enhanced search and assistance across a broader set of topics – including answers to employee questions about Bank of America products and services – with plans to leverage both AI and generative AI (GenAI).

Other additional AI deployments underway include coding assistance, which is expected to give BofA’s software developers efficiency gains of over 20%; and a functionality to help employees prepare for client meetings, such as developing materials and drafts.

BofA also plans to optimise its contact center further through a desktop tool that leverages AI to provide guided assistance  to customer service specialists.

An internally-developed GenAI platform may also be rolled out in the near future, which will enable BofA’s global markets sales and trading team to search, summarise, and synthesize BofA’s research and market commentaries faster.