100% AI-generated performance marketing campaigns
Enabled an open, self-service data layer for advanced analytics and AI
Enterprise-wide productivity gains with Gemini
Faster resolution and improved contact center support using Agent Assist
Commerzbank amplified company-wide AI creativity and governed data access with Gemini and Google Cloud’s borderless Lakehouse.
Commerzbank amplified company-wide AI creativity and governed data access with Gemini and Google Cloud’s borderless Lakehouse.
Capitalizing on AI to clear enterprise bottlenecks
As a bank, we are not a natural-born technological company. If you are in the cloud, it’s not necessary to build everything on your own. Google Cloud is a very strong partner and really helps us to improve our different services and products.
Gerald Ertl
Head of Strategic Program AI, Commerzbank
For more than 155 years, Commerzbank has been the bank for Germany, serving as a strong partner for more than 25,000 corporate client groups and managing more than €400 billion for private and small-business customers. As part of its "Momentum 2030" strategy, the bank is continuing to scale its proven business model, expanding the use of AI across its organization to drive growth, increase efficiency, and advance technological innovation.
The primary vision is to make AI a natural part of everyday work—a mission that necessitates tackling longstanding challenges around operational friction, agility, and data fragmentation, while meeting the demanding regulatory compliance of the German market.
“There have been three main bottlenecks for us. Time to market, a limitation in personalization, and data, [how] to process it and get the best out of it,” says Gerald Ertl, Commerzbank’s head of strategic program AI. “AI is the core component to realize Commerzbank’s vision and put it in benefits for customers, for our employees, and our shareholders.”
To accelerate its digital transformation, Commerzbank structured its approach around four distinct pillars: the foundation, AI democratization, process and product redesign, and the development life cycle. Executing this framework effectively required a partner that could deliver enterprise-grade data and AI technologies without compromising data governance, security, or customer trust.
By joining forces with Google Cloud, Commerzbank has positioned itself to lead in the agentic era, launching initiatives to amplify marketing creativity and empower its workforce with the latest AI capabilities. In parallel, the bank created an open data foundation alongside automated guardrails to deliver secure, compliant innovation at scale. “As a bank, we are not a natural-born technological company. If you are in the cloud, it’s not necessary to build everything on your own,” Ertl adds. “Google Cloud is a very strong partner and really helps us to improve our different services and products.”
Driving creative dividends to reshape
how work gets done
One of the core platforms here is Gemini. We are using Gemini, Nano Banana, and Veo to generate high-quality, brand-safe, and very personalized content for our customers. 100% of the digital campaigns for performance marketing are done via AI.
Gerald Ertl
Head of Strategic Program AI, Commerzbank
Commerzbank started its journey with a clear strategic priority: increasing creative agility. Historically, reliance on dedicated design support delayed visual assets and prototypes, impacting the Bank’s ability to launch marketing campaigns, introduce new products, or personalize experiences.
To speed up creative production, Commerzbank adopted Gemini, equipping teams with advanced multimodal AI and media generation models.
“We are using Gemini, Nano Banana, and Veo to generate high-quality, brand-safe, and very personalized content for our customers,” Ertl shares. “Our performance campaigns for social and display are now completely supported via AI, and the outcome is really incredible.”
The biggest breakthrough was achieving dramatic speed without compromising quality. AI-driven workflows allow teams to turn their ideas into assets in minutes, delivering photorealistic outputs that are virtually indistinguishable from traditional studio production. To ensure complete transparency, all AI-generated content is tagged and labeled in line with the bank’s AI principles.
Following this success, Commerzbank is expanding these benefits to the broader workforce with Gemini. By providing a “front door” to AI, employees can now use AI tools or Google-made agents like Gemini Notebook in their daily work to help manage complex information, summarize lengthy reports, or generate everything from presentation slides to podcasts. “Gemini enables us to democratize AI. It's important that we take complete colleagues and complete teams on our AI journey,” Ertl emphasizes. “Visualization via Gemini Notebook or multimodal capabilities are really great. You get freed from some tasks and, on the other hand, you can be more creative.”
Beyond internal workflows, this transformation is coming to life in everyday customer interactions as well with Gemini for customer experience. Commerzbank deployed Agent Assist across its contact centers, which offers live call transcription, post-call summaries, in-the-moment coaching, and next-best-action guidance to help representatives resolve issues faster with greater accuracy.
Building foundations for the
next generation of banking
In order to harness the full potential of AI, Commerzbank recognized that it would need more than cutting-edge models. It would also need enterprise-grade foundations. Using Google Cloud’s borderless Lakehouse and Agentic Data Cloud, the bank modernized to an open lakehouse architecture built on Apache Iceberg. This shift replaced legacy data silos with an open data foundation that transforms raw data into consumable, governed data assets. As Ertl notes, this unified, open model allowed engineering teams to offload the technical heavy lifting to Google Cloud and empowered business units with a self-service data layer—dramatically reducing the time it takes to deliver new products.
“It’s all about separation of storage and performance scalability,” he explains. “With Apache Iceberg, we avoid vendor lock-in. We are very flexible. With Lakehouse, you have the scalability, you have different managed services you can use, and the combination is really great and enables us to have the foundation layer for our AI strategy.”
In banking, trust is everything. If you would use many isolated, open tools, it would be a nightmare. Google Cloud's unified governance and native Iceberg architecture is a single source of truth, which enables us in a very efficient and industrialized manner to realize our targets and products.
Gerald Ertl
Head of Strategic Program AI, Commerzbank
At the same time, Commerzbank faces significant regulatory complexity, operating in an industry bound by strict European data privacy laws and financial regulations. To navigate these requirements safely without slowing innovation, the bank automated its governance and risk frameworks, integrating guardrails directly into its development pipelines. Adopting security-as-code lets engineering teams move quickly with confidence, ensuring new AI applications meet the highest levels of security and compliance.
“In banking, trust is everything,” Ertl emphasizes. “If you would use many isolated, open tools, it would be a nightmare. Google Cloud's unified governance and native Iceberg architecture is a single source of truth, which enables us in a very efficient and industrialized manner to realize our targets and products.”
Commerzbank is the leading bank for the German Mittelstand and a strong partner for around 24,000 corporate client groups. In addition, it supports private and small-business customers in Germany, with more than €400 billion assets under management.
Industry: Financial Services
Location: Germany
Products: Gemini platform, Gemini, Gemini for customer experience, Lakehouse
