The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that from recovering unpaid debt to saving thousands of workdays, the big banks are racing to use artificial intelligence to improve their financial performance. The Post's Naimul Karim writes that RBC chief executive officer Dave McKay said the lender sees significant opportunity in using AI to transform its business instead of pursuing transformational acquisitions that would require it to use its shares. "That is going to drive by far the greatest shareholder return and that's where the focus of the organization is right now," he said at a Toronto banking conference. "It is fundamental, and it has a huge opportunity to drive those ROEs [return on equity] higher, to drive a significantly higher growth rate. Making an acquisition would distract us right now." National Bank of Canada chief executive Laurent Ferreira said AI has helped reduce the bank's call centre volume by 43 per cent over the past year and enabled wealth advisers and capital markets professionals to access information and analysis at "crazy speeds." Meanwhile, Bank of Nova Scotia boss Scott Thomson said AI has helped the lender save about 24,000 workdays over the past quarter-and-a-half.