JPMorgan Chase accounts for over one-third of the AI research conducted within the banking sector, according to findings from Evident, a benchmarking and intelligence platform.
Evident’s comprehensive analysis of more than 2,700 AI-specific research papers from 50 of the largest global banks reveals that the industry’s annual output of AI research has surged sevenfold in the past five years. The number of banks engaged in publishing AI research has nearly doubled since 2019, rising from 25 to 46 among the monitored institutions.
Despite this growth, a few major players continue to dominate the landscape. Last year, 65% of AI research was attributed to just five banks: JPMorgan Chase (37%), Capital One (14%), Wells Fargo (5%), RBC (5%), and TD Bank (4%).
Evident indicates that a direct correlation exists between banks’ historical research activities and their AI applications and products—ranging from RBC’s ATOM model for lending to Capital One’s multi-agent systems designed for customer service.
Research focused on AI agents and agent-based systems has emerged as the fifth most prevalent theme in published papers, accounting for nearly 6% of the total research output for the year-to-date 2025. This figure is twice the current proportion of publicly reported agentic use cases identified by Evident in the banking sector.
“Through their research initiatives, banks like JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, RBC, Wells Fargo, and TD Bank are shaping the future of AI deployment in high-stakes, regulated environments,” noted Alexandra Mousavizadeh, CEO of Evident. “In contrast to the more conservative R&D strategies seen in Big Tech, these banks are indicating the trajectory for applied AI within financial services, impressively transitioning from research to scalable production in just two to three years—an extraordinarily rapid process compared to academic standards.”