Santander Equips All 185,000 Workers With AI Tools

Santander is putting artificial intelligence tools into the hands of every employee. The bank said Monday it is extending AI access from 40,000 workers to all 185,000, part of a push to generate more than 1 billion euros in business value from the technology between 2026 and 2028.

“For many employees, this means using AI in everyday productivity tools to prepare analysis, find information faster, summarize documents, improve customer conversations or simplify internal processes,” Ricardo Martín Manjón, the bank’s chief data and AI officer, wrote in a company article.

The tools span multiple vendors. Santander is deploying Microsoft’s Copilot, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini and G42’s banking solutions. The bank is also rolling out training and internal communities where staff can share examples.

Before this expansion, Santander already had 17,000 people using AI in software development. In June, 40% of its code was written with AI assistance. The bank’s AI models now process 100,000 anti-money laundering alerts per year, and more than 280 process automation agents are in production.

Santander started measuring AI’s business impact in 2026. In the first quarter alone, the technology generated 35 million euros in value, measured as both additional revenue and cost reductions.

“We are not starting from theory,” Martín Manjón said. “AI is already improving processes, supporting our teams and opening new opportunities across the bank.”

Santander told investors at a February Investor Day that AI would be central to its plan to boost profit and expand its customer base over the next 24 months. The bank said the technology would be embedded in the business to deliver “hyper-personalized customer journeys.”

The deployment of Microsoft’s Copilot across Santander’s workforce ties directly to the software giant’s push to embed AI into enterprise workflows. MSFT stock page