BBVA has made a leap into artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to redefine customer relationships and increase employee productivity. CEO Onur Genç argued at the Money2020 Europe forum in Amsterdam that this technological transformation will be more profound and rapid than the shift experienced with digital banking.

AI is ushering in a new era for the financial sector, enabling the offering of more personalized, contextual, and proactive services. For customers, a more conversational experience with tailored advice is anticipated. For employees, AI will boost productivity and free up time from routine tasks, allowing them to focus on higher value-added activities.

The bank has already massively deployed this technology, with over 100,000 employees accessing tools like ChatGPT Enterprise and Gemini, achieving a 70% regular usage rate. BBVA has defined eight lines of action covering the entire value chain, from customer service to risk management and software development.

Among the initial results, the entity highlights savings of up to 50% in software development and testing tasks, a 78% reduction in the time spent on logging complaints, and significant progress in automating customer inquiries. The main challenge now is to scale this technology in an orderly manner across the organization, 'industrializing' the creation and management of intelligent agents.

To this end, the bank has established the global AI Transformation area to drive AI adoption. This new phase relies on intelligent agents capable of automating tasks, making decisions, and interacting with each other, always under human supervision and with robust security and responsible use controls.

Onur Genç emphasized that trust will remain the key differentiator for banks in the AI era, enabling more natural, personal, and proactive customer interactions, evolving towards advice and financial well-being.