Santander, one of the world’s largest banking groups headquartered in Spain, and OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence research and deployment company, have joined forces to accelerate Santander’s transformation into an “AI-native” bank.
The collaboration is part of the bank’s ongoing “data & AI-first” strategy to embed artificial intelligence at the core of its operations.
The partnership aims to scale AI adoption across Santander’s global operations, enhancing efficiency, personalisation and agility in how the bank serves its customers. By integrating OpenAI’s advanced capabilities, Santander is working to modernise processes, improve customer experiences, and create a culture of AI-driven innovation.
Santander operates as a “digital bank with branches” model, serving millions of customers worldwide through a combination of human expertise and technology. Its AI strategy is built on three pillars: embedding AI in all business functions, integrating AI into its global platforms, and leveraging an AI ecosystem powered by collaborations with OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, and a vibrant startup community. OpenAI is known globally for creating advanced large language models, including ChatGPT, which are being deployed at scale in banking operations.
Through this collaboration, Santander has already rolled out ChatGPT Enterprise to nearly 15,000 employees across Europe and the Americas within just two months — one of the fastest deployments of its kind. The bank plans to expand usage to 30,000 employees by the end of 2024, representing about 15% of its workforce. Early applications include investment copilots offering real-time strategy suggestions, hyper-personalised customer journeys, and AI agents automating back-office processes.
The integration of OpenAI’s technology is vendor-agnostic, meaning Santander can connect to multiple large language models through its modular architecture. This “build once, reuse everywhere” approach is designed to increase innovation speed and operational efficiency.
In 2024 alone, Santander’s AI initiatives generated over €200m in savings. AI copilots now support over 40% of contact centre interactions, while in Spain, Speech Analytics technology processes 10m voice calls annually, auto-filling CRM systems and freeing more than 100,000 hours for higher-value work. Over 6,000 developers are using AI tools to boost productivity by 20–30% for some tasks.
The bank is also rolling out tailored AI training across roles and markets to democratise its use, with a mandatory “Responsible AI” training plan for all employees set for launch in 2026. This is supported by strict ethical, legal, and cybersecurity frameworks, ensuring no customer data is shared externally for model training and that all AI processes operate in secure environments.
Santander said, “We’re not chasing hype. Our roadmap is built on real impact, operational rigour and human empowerment. Our data & AI-first strategy is how we deliver smarter solutions, happier customers and a future-ready bank.”
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