The news: TD Bank plans to be “more human,” according to its Super Bowl ad. The tagline is part of the bank’s brand refresh to simplify and unify its platform across Canada and the US. The ad, which cost as much as $20 million, featured a human helping a quaint delivery robot out of a pothole.

Why it’s worth watching: TD is prioritizing digital customer acquisition via adoption of its digital services. It plans to close 51 branches across 13 states, primarily in its dense New England and mid-Atlantic markets. This fits into a broader trend of closing, opening, or redesigning branch locations based on customer behavior and market opportunities.

Meanwhile, the bank in some ways is investing in becoming "less human.” TD Bank’s marketing materials emphasize how AI is “reshaping the TD experience” by expediting back-office tasks, making applications simpler, and building more advanced tools for bank staff. The bank targets $1 billion in total value from AI investments between cost savings and revenue growth.

Zoom out: Marketing and AI investments overlap, particularly with regard to automation, but AI is also augmenting customer-facing tools. The biggest US banks spent $6 billion or more on marketing in 2025, 0.10% of their total asset value. And some top banks are spending double-digit billions annually on technology, dedicating a few billion dollars just to AI.

Implications for banks: Banks need to build an image centered on individualized customer care while increasingly digitizing their services. Branch rationalization is reducing the number of human touchpoints even as it makes physical locations more profitable. And digitization is pushing more interactions into self-service channels, including customer service. Banks have a balance to strike that branding won’t solve.