Today, DBS is an AI-enabled bank with a heart, blending the best of machine capabilities with human empathy, creativity, and judgement to deliver trusted banking solutions for our customers.

Our AI strategy is rooted in these focus areas:

• Authentic intelligence: blending machine and human capabilities for deeper, trusted relationships.
• Augmenting our people: AI empowers our employees with new skills, tools and ways of working.
• Agentic economy: exploring new experiences around customers using agents for servicing, product discovery and decision making.
• Community uplift: partnering to boost AI literacy, cover AI benefits and risks.
• Responsible AI: safeguarding decades of trust with customers, employees and communities in every AI initiative.

As one of the world’s first, and still among a select few to quantify AI’s economic impact, DBS is committed to creating tangible value through AI. In 2024, we achieved SGD 750 million in economic value using AI. In 2025, we expect the number to reach SGD 1 billion.

Here are three examples of DBS is industrialising AI across the bank and for our customers, as showcased at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2025.

iCoach: Future-proofing our workforce by democratising career coaching

iCoach is a Gen AI-powered tool that provides personalised career coaching based on expert advice, backed by the world-renowned Marshall Goldsmith's expertise and knowledge.

The tool is available 24/7 and on demand, and is integrated with DBS' HR career-related resources, ensuring that the recommendations are contextualised to DBS.

The case for career coaching

Data has shown that coaching leads to many benefits, including:

• 149% increase in resilience
• 90% reduction in stress
• 80% reported increase in self-confidence
• 70% of employees benefitted from improved work performance, relationships and more effective communication skills

The problem was that not everyone had access to career coaching. Hence, iCoach was developed as a solution to democratise this resource.

iCoach supports employees across different roles and stages in their career:

• iCoach is a career coach, providing coaching on specific career-related area(s) raised by employees and action points to work on.
• iCoach complements the mentor, providing employees with career guidance and support based on their experiences.
• iCoach complements the human resources partner, providing employees with organisational perspectives and support through career conversations.
• iCoach complements the manager, providing employees with direct feedback on their performance.

DBS-GPT: Working smarter, better, faster with Gen AI

DBS-GPT is DBS' internal Gen AI chatbot that helps employees with routine tasks like summarising transcripts, content generation, and even coding – all within a controlled, secure environment that adheres to the strict requirements of the financial industry.

• Helps employees with routine tasks
• Democratises knowledge internally
• Eliminates risks of data exposure
• Equipped with DBS knowledge

Our strategic focus

DBS-GPT is part of our wider AI strategy. It is a foundational "horizontal" layer, industrialising Gen AI across the bank to empower and foster agility in addition to tapping Gen AI benefits across multiple specific "vertical" use cases.

In creating DBS-GPT, we had two primary objectives:

1. Equip employees with cutting-edge tools for a diverse range of tasks, fostering innovation and efficiency.
2. Ensure data security and compliance, offering a controlled environment for employees to experiment safely.

"As DBS advances on our journey to be an AI-enabled bank with a heart, we remain committed to leveraging AI responsibly, blending machine intelligence with human empathy to reinforce the trust our customers place in us." – Tan Su Shan, DBS Group CEO

Through the industrialisation of Gen AI via DBS-GPT, we are committed to empowering our employees with the technology of tomorrow – securely and conscientiously. DBS-GPT is currently available to all DBS employees.

DBS Joy: revolutionising corporate banking with Gen AI

Aside from our deployment of Gen AI within the bank, we've also launched a new and improved DBS Joy – our first customer-facing Gen AI use case. Embedded within DBS IDEAL, DBS Joy is a Gen AI assistant to assist our corporate customers with business banking needs and queries.

First launched in March 2018, Joy has continually evolved. Initially, the chatbot relied on Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to provide pre-programmed responses. In 2024, we integrated Gen AI. Powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), DBS Joy can now deliver smarter, more dynamic, and accurate responses to customer queries. With the ability to understand open-ended input, adapt, and learn throughout conversations, it can deliver empathetic and specific responses not limited to standard scripts.

DBS as an AI-enabled bank with a heart

DBS approaches responsible AI by deploying AI in a manner that is ethical, transparent, and fosters trust, recognising AI as a powerful enabler for efficiency, customer experience, and innovation, but requiring clear guiding principles for its deployment.

DBS's Responsible AI approach is underpinned by robust governance and frameworks designed to ensure ethical and lawful data usage.

• PURE Framework: This foundational framework guides the ethical use of data, ensuring it is Purposeful, Unsurprising, Respectful, and Explainable. PURE is part of the broader Responsible Data Use (RDU) framework, which considers three core elements to ensure AI use is lawful, ethical, and fair, including ensuring alignment with legal and regulatory boundaries.
• Generative AI (Gen AI): DBS adopts a cautious strategy for Gen AI solutions, including risk assessment frameworks, a responsible AI playbook, and ensuring all Gen AI use cases follow the responsible AI process.
• Organisational structure and oversight The Group Responsible Data Use Committee provides oversight and direction, while the Chief Data Office – Data Management owns and develops the PURE and AI Governance frameworks. A cross-functional Responsible AI (RAI) Taskforce helps identify additional controls as Gen AI use cases are scaled.

DBS' commitment to responsible AI also extends to our employees through comprehensive training and a culture of responsibility. Mandatory training programmes for all employees and contractors emphasise ethical AI, with the PURE learning component integrated into new joiner curricula.

Additionally, DBS actively participates in shaping industry standards and has achieved recognition for our contributions to driving responsible AI.

DBS is a primary member of Project MindForge, a Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) initiative focused on fostering responsible Gen AI use in financial services, and part of the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) Standing Committee on Data Management.

As a result of its successful AI strategy, DBS has clinched multiple international accolades, including the World's Best AI Bank in 2025 (Global Finance).