Artificial intelligence has been taking on tasks such as writing code in companies, managing employee schedules and filtering job candidates — and now it even conducts important corporate meetings.
Customers Bank recently held an earnings call to discuss Q1 numbers with analysts, but 30 minutes into it, CEO Sam Sidhu surprised everyone with a revelation: Up until that point, an AI replica of himself had led the meeting.
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“The remarks you heard today on my behalf were presented by my AI clone, not read by me,” Sidhu said during a conference call, according to CNBC.
The leader of the institution, which has US$25.9 billion in assets, explained the reason for the initiative: Sidhu wanted to draw attention to the AI-driven transformation underway at Customers Bank.
The company entered into a multi-year agreement with OpenAI to accelerate its technological innovation; the Silicon Valley giant will deploy engineers within the bank and implement AI agents in commercial banking operations, making it one of the “first AI-enabled regional banks in the United States,” according to a statement.
The bank also highlighted that this transformation has been going on for a few years — the partnership with OpenAI began in 2023, with the adoption of ChatGPT Enterprise — and today 75% of employees use tools based on the company’s technology. Around 600 employees also recently participated in a masterclass on AI.
“We are investing heavily to ensure that all members of our team have access to AI tools and the training necessary to use them with confidence”, said, in a note, the CEO of Customers Bancorp Inc. and Customers Bank to Fortune.
“This is a movement our team is joining,” continued Sidhu. “The goal is to eliminate repetitive, administrative tasks so people can focus on what they do best — we’re not replacing critical thinking and judgment, we’re eliminating the tedious, time-consuming work that gets in the way of that.”
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The CEOs who are creating AI clones
The CEO of Customers Bank isn’t the only business leader using a digital twin at work — tech clones of executives are being developed to help with employee engagement, earnings calls and internal communications.
Earlier this month, Meta drew attention by creating an AI version of its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to interact with employees at the $1.71 trillion technology giant, according to the Financial Times.
The Zuckerberg clone is just one of the 3D AI characters the company is developing, which users can interact with at any time. Meta employees can potentially chat with and get feedback from this virtual double, trained on their mannerisms, tone of voice, public statements and opinions about the company’s strategy.
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Other companies have already adopted AI clones of their leaders in a similar way to Customers Bank. In early 2025, an AI version of Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, was used in a video about the company’s first quarter results.
And that’s just one part of the changes predicted in the company’s “buy now, pay later” technological transformation — thanks to AI efficiency gains, the CEO predicted the workforce will fall from 3,000 employees to fewer than 2,000 by 2030.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has also joined the trend — he used an AI double during the video conferencing platform’s Q1 earnings call this year.
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He sees a future where not just CEOs use their digital twins for operational tasks; As recently as 2024, Yuan expressed interest in creating AI avatars so that employees can delegate repetitive work to their “clone”, such as participating in tiring meetings, responding to emails and answering calls.
“I can send a digital version of myself to participate while I go to the beach,” the Zoom CEO told The Verge in 2024.
“Today we all spend a lot of time making calls, attending meetings, sending emails, deleting spam and responding to messages — we are still very busy,” the billionaire continued. “How can we use AI, how can we use Zoom Workplace, to completely automate this type of work?”
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