NatWest Group has expanded the use of artificial intelligence in several areas of its operations, citing customer service, document management in its wealth management division, and software development. According to a blog post by its chief information officer, Scott Marcar, 2025 was the first year in which these systems were deployed at scale. The aim is to improve productivity and customer engagement.
Generative AI in customer service
In customer service, generative AI has been added to Cora, the bank’s digital assistant, and the number of possible customer journeys that can be supported by generative AI increased from four to 21. The bank reports this has let led to quicker resolution times and a reduced need for human intervention.
Early this year, 25,000 customers will get access to a new agentic financial assistant in Cora, which is built on OpenAI models. Cora will let customers ask questions in natural language about recent transactions and their spending patterns from the bank’s app.
The next phase involves adding voice-to-voice abilities that incorporate tone and conversational nuance. Customers will be able to report suspected fraud and manage related cases through the interface.
The impact of AI on internal customer service operations has been largely in the creation time savings. In the bank’s retail division, for example, automated call summaries and complaint drafting tools have saved more than 70,000 hours of staff time. These generated summaries of customer calls help with written responses to complaints.
Staff access to Copilot
Marcar says all of its c. 60,000 employees have access to AI tools that include Microsoft Copilot Chat and the bank’s own LLM. More than half of staff have taken extra training beyond the basic training offered.
Summarising wealth
In the NatWest’s private banking and wealth management operations, AI is used to improve document management and client records. Relationship managers use notes, meeting summaries, and correspondence to understand clients’ circumstances. The systems generate summaries of meetings and documents, reducing the time required to review and record information, releasing 30% more time for direct client face time: Advisers allocate more hours to the giving of advice rather than administration.
AWS Cloud
The above changes depends alterations NatWest has made to its data infrastructure. It’s restructured its data estate to create unified customer views, and moved workloads to Amazon Web Services while simplifying some legacy systems. Access to data and scalable computing capacity supports the summarisation tools and the conversational systems used in customer service.
Software development
Software development is the third area in which AI is deployed. The bank’s 12,000 engineers use AI coding tools, and Marcar says AI now produces over a third of the company’s code, drafting, reviewing and testing software. In 2025, NatWest hired nearly 1,000 graduate software engineers in India and the UK.
Trials of agentic engineering in its financial crime units led to a tenfold increase in productivity, and NatWest plans to extend agentic engineering practices more widely. Its stated objective is to build and iterate systems more quickly.
Fraud prevention
The bank has also invested in AI-powered analytics fraud detection and risk monitoring, designed to identify unusual activity and advise customers when risk is detected.
Alongside operational deployment, NatWest has established an AI research office that focuses on technologies like audiovisual conversational systems and proprietary small language models. It’s also formalised governance structures through an AI and Data Ethics Code of Conduct and the organisation is part of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Live AI Testing programme.
Conclusions
Across customer service, wealth management document processing, and software development, AI is embedded in workflows at NatWest, producing time savings and productivity increases. The scale of deployment, covering tens of thousands of employees and a growing proportion of customer interactions, indicates that AI now forms part of NatWest’s operating model not an experimental adjunct.
(Image source: Pixabay)
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