NatWest Group has significantly broadened its application of artificial intelligence across various operational domains, according to Scott Marcar, its chief information officer. Key areas seeing expanded AI usage include customer service, document management within its wealth division, and software development. Marcar noted in a blog post that systems began to be implemented on a large scale in 2025, with primary objectives focused on enhancing operational efficiency and improving interactions with customers.
Enhancing Customer Interaction with Generative AI
Within customer service, the bank's digital assistant, Cora, has been augmented with generative AI capabilities. This enhancement has considerably expanded the range of customer interactions supported by AI, increasing from four to twenty-one distinct journeys. This development has reportedly led to faster issue resolution and a decreased reliance on direct human assistance.
Later this year, approximately 25,000 customers are scheduled to gain access to an innovative agentic financial assistant within Cora, powered by OpenAI's advanced models. This new functionality will enable users to pose natural language inquiries regarding their recent transactions and spending habits directly through the banking application.
Future enhancements include the integration of voice-to-voice features, designed to capture tone and subtleties in conversation. This will allow customers to report potential fraud and oversee associated cases via the same intelligent interface.
Internally, AI has also driven substantial time efficiencies within customer service operations. For instance, the retail division has saved over 70,000 staff hours through automated call summarization and complaint drafting mechanisms, aiding in the formulation of written responses.
Empowering the Workforce
Approximately 60,000 employees throughout the organization now have access to various AI tools, encompassing Microsoft Copilot Chat and NatWest's proprietary large language model. Furthermore, over half of the workforce has completed advanced training, exceeding the foundational instruction provided.
Revolutionizing Wealth Management
Within NatWest's private banking and wealth management operations, artificial intelligence is being utilized to streamline document handling and client record keeping. Relationship managers, who typically review extensive notes, meeting summaries, and correspondence to grasp client situations, now benefit from AI-generated summaries of these documents. This automation significantly cuts down the time spent on information review and recording, ultimately freeing up 30% more time for direct interaction with clients. Advisors can thus prioritize providing counsel over administrative duties.
The Foundation: Cloud Infrastructure
These technological advancements are underpinned by substantial modifications to NatWest's data infrastructure. The bank has redesigned its data estate to establish comprehensive, unified customer perspectives, migrated workloads to Amazon Web Services, and simplified several outdated legacy systems. This enhanced access to data and scalable computing resources provides the necessary foundation for the advanced summarization tools and conversational AI systems deployed in customer service.
Accelerating Software Development
Software development represents another key domain for AI integration. The institution's 12,000 engineers leverage AI-powered coding tools, with AI now contributing to over one-third of the company's codebase through drafting, reviewing, and testing software. Notably, in 2025, NatWest recruited almost 1,000 graduate software engineers across India and the United Kingdom.
Pilot programs involving agentic engineering within its financial crime divisions demonstrated a remarkable tenfold increase in productivity. Consequently, NatWest intends to broadly implement agentic engineering practices, with the stated aim of accelerating system development and iteration cycles.
Fortifying Security and Innovation
Furthermore, the bank has committed resources to AI-driven analytics for fraud detection and risk surveillance. These systems are engineered to pinpoint unusual activities and proactively alert customers when potential risks emerge.
Beyond operational deployments, NatWest has established a dedicated AI research office. This division focuses on exploring advanced technologies such as audiovisual conversational systems and developing proprietary small language models. The bank has also formalized its governance frameworks with an AI and Data Ethics Code of Conduct and actively participates in the Financial Conduct Authority's Live AI Testing programme.
Conclusion
From customer service enhancements to streamlined wealth management document processing and accelerated software development, AI is now deeply integrated into NatWest's core operational workflows. The extensive scale of this deployment, impacting tens of thousands of employees and a growing segment of customer interactions, underscores AI's status as a fundamental component of NatWest's operating model, rather than a mere experimental addition.
This article is a rewritten summary based on publicly available reporting. For the original story, visit the source.
Source: AI News
