Good morning. Bank of America posted its strongest earnings in nearly two decades, and CFO Alastair Borthwick says AI is becoming key to the bank’s performance.
The bank reported on Wednesday that Q1 2026 net income was $8.6 billion, with earnings per share up 25% to $1.11, which is the highest level in almost 20 years. On a media call, Borthwick pointed to AI as an increasingly important driver, highlighting a new internal tool for financial advisors.
The Meeting Journey tool helps advisors prepare for client meetings by pulling together key information. BofA has about 18,000 financial advisors across its wealth management platform, serving millions of clients, he said. Before meeting with a client, advisors regularly need to update themselves with a wide range of information such as client history, recent activity, and CIO guidance, he explained.
The tool searches and consolidates client relationship insights and recent activity into ready-to-use prep materials and, with client consent, acts as an AI notetaker during virtual meetings. It also summarizes meeting decisions and next steps based on those notes. The goal is to cut down hours of manual prep and free advisors to focus on client relationships.
“Efforts like this translate into results,” Borthwick said, pointing to record first-quarter revenue and improved cost control.
Preparing for meetings once meant pulling data from multiple systems; now much of that work is automated, he said. “Not necessarily the judgment—that can be human,” Borthwick added. The bank invests around $13.5 billion annually in technology, including approximately $4 billion on new initiatives like AI.
More broadly, BofA’s strong quarter was driven by several factors:
—Net interest income rose 9% to $15.9 billion as loan and deposit growth accelerated.
—Trading revenue hit $6.3 billion—its best in roughly 15 years—boosted by a record high 30% jump in equities.
—Investment banking fees climbed 21% to $1.8 billion on a solid M&A market.
—Asset management fees grew 15% to $4.2 billion.
—Productivity gains, including from AI, helped the company maintain cost discipline and improve its efficiency ratio by 170 basis points to 61%.
With revenues outpacing expenses, BofA achieved its third consecutive quarter of operating leverage at 2.9%. This week, Morningstar raised its fair value estimate for BofA to $65 per share, up from $58.
Amid ongoing uncertainty around geopolitics, rates, and credit, Borthwick said the bank’s data shows a resilient U.S. consumer. Unemployment remains at around 4.3%, supporting spending, while a recent rise in gas outlays hasn’t materially changed the broader picture, he said. “You can see that in our asset quality,” he added.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Christopher Filiaggi was appointed interim CFO of Corebridge Financial, Inc. (NYSE: CRBG), effective April 24. Filiaggi, chief accounting officer of Corebridge since 2023, will serve as interim CFO while the company prepares for its planned merger with Equitable Holdings, Inc. This appointment follows the previously announced transition of CFO Elias Habayeb. Prior to his current role, Filiaggi held finance leadership positions with Corebridge and American International Group, Inc.
Sean McCabe was appointed CFO of Cineverse, an entertainment technology company (Nasdaq: CNVS), effective April 20. He succeeds Mark Lindsey, with whom the company is in discussions to transition into a senior financial consulting role. McCabe previously served as VP and corporate controller at Cineverse in 2023 and 2024. He returns from Freestar, an ad-tech company, where he led accounting and finance teams and worked on mergers and acquisitions, treasury, and capital structure optimization. Before joining Freestar and Cineverse, McCabe held controller positions at Jukin Media, Fulgent Genetics, and National Grid.
Big Deal
BridgeWise's inaugural “State of AI for Wealth in 2026” report finds that 78% of respondents globally are using AI tools for investment-related queries, with nearly half (45.7%) emerging as power users, consulting AI "always" or "often" when seeking investment information. The global study is based on 2,100 respondents across 19 countries.
The report also introduces a Global Wealth AI Optimism Index, a proprietary benchmark that evaluates the 19 included countries through four weighted pillars: adoption (AI usage frequency), confidence (trust in AI accuracy), edge (perceived competitive advantage when using AI for investing), and momentum (intent to replace traditional investment research with AI).
Going deeper
"From wool sneakers to GPUs: Allbirds’ desperate AI pivot and 600% stock surge, explained" is a Fortune article by Phil Wahba.
On Wednesday, Allbirds, a sustainable footwear brand, “announced that it had secured $50 million in financing to turn itself into a tech company with a 'long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider' and that it would change its name to NewBird AI,” Wahba writes. You can read more here.
Overheard
"When people understand how their work drives the company’s value, they act like owners: they innovate, they solve problems, and they stay."
—Vicente Reynal, chairman, president, and CEO of Ingersoll Rand, writes in a Fortune opinion piece titled "Here’s how employee ownership helped drive more than 8x enterprise value growth."
