HSBC expands AI partnership with Google Cloud

HSBC has signed a multi-year partnership with Google Cloud to develop and deploy artificial intelligence tools across its global operations. The agreement, announced at Google Cloud Summit London 2026, covers wealth management, financial crime risk management and internal decision support, and will use Gemini models, the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Google DeepMind engineering teams.

The deal targets more than 200 AI use cases over the next two years. HSBC estimates selected initiatives could each produce in excess of US$100 million through revenue increases or efficiency savings. The bank already runs more than 600 applications on Google Cloud and reports more than 600 AI use cases across the group, with over 100 active generative AI use cases reported in its 2025 Strategic Report.

HSBC and Google previously collaborated on Dynamic Risk Assessment, a system piloted in 2021 that the bank says identified two to four times more financial crime than earlier methods. Google Cloud reports HSBC screens more than 1.2 billion transactions monthly for signs of financial crime. Under the new agreement, HSBC expects generative and agentic AI to help it intervene up to twice as fast across the nearly one billion transactions it monitors each month.

In wealth management, HSBC plans to combine AI-generated insights with the work of relationship managers to support financial advice and client service. The bank will expand an AI-powered decision assistant already used by thousands of staff; HSBC reports the tool has reduced administrative work and client-meeting preparation from hours to minutes. More than 20,000 developers at the bank use coding assistants, producing about a 15% improvement in coding time.

HSBC will apply AI to organise regulatory procedures into structured formats that present staff with options and analysis while keeping human judgement central to decisions. The bank appointed David Rice as its first Chief AI Officer, effective 1 April 2026, to oversee group-wide AI adoption.

The Google Cloud deal follows HSBC’s December 2025 multi-year agreement with Mistral AI, which provided access to commercial models for internal tools, financial analysis, multilingual reasoning, translation and prototyping. Industry surveys show broad adoption of generative and agentic AI across finance, and HSBC plans to scale existing pilots into production across multiple business lines.

Georges Elhedery, Group CEO of HSBC, stated: “The bank is using AI to create more personalised customer experiences while retaining human judgement and accountability.” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, added: “We will support HSBC’s AI work through Gemini, the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Google DeepMind’s research expertise.”