The US bank regulator OCC tells its examiners how to judge banks' use of AI, which it now calls “Super Intelligence”, and says it is not a separate risk

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which supervises US national banks, issued News Release 2026-97 and Bulletin 2026-54 on 4 November. They set out a framework for its examiners on how banks use what the agency now calls “Super Intelligence” (SI), including “agentic SI”.

The bulletin says the term “refers to the technologies and systems previously encompassed by the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’”. Neither document explains the change of name.

Examiners are told not to treat SI as a separate risk category, and banks do not need a separate SI risk appetite. A bank may classify its SI uses by their potential consequences rather than by how technically sophisticated the systems are. Examiners are to scale each review to how much a use matters to the bank, and for community banks to the bank's size, complexity and risk profile.

The bulletin says the framework “does not establish supervisory expectations for banks”, and the OCC says it will update it as the technology changes. Reuters reported that the OCC said it is the first guidance for how examiners should probe banks' AI use.

The full framework is a PDF, which did not open for us, so details beyond the release and the bulletin are not visible from here.

• Confirmed Examiners should not treat SI as a separate risk category, and banks are not required to define a separate SI risk appetite. OCC Bulletin 2026-54
• Confirmed The bulletin says “Super Intelligence” refers to the technologies previously covered by the term “Artificial Intelligence”. OCC Bulletin 2026-54
• Confirmed The OCC issued the framework for examiners on 4 November. OCC News Release 2026-97
• Reported The OCC said it is the first guidance on how examiners should probe banks' AI use, Reuters reported. Reuters (syndicated)