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The only certainty is that how customers bank will look very different in the future. That’s why being closer to them, with insight and trust, matters more than ever. As technology reshapes how people live, work and bank, we’ve put in place the building blocks to understand, respond to, and serve customers’ fast evolving needs. 

Last year brought AI deployment at scale across NatWest, and as we move into 2026, the transformative benefits are becoming more of a reality for our customers and colleagues - delivering growth, greater productivity, and, most importantly, deepening relationships - so that we can be a trusted partner for tomorrow’s banking.

 

Transforming our technology foundations

We can’t underestimate the scale of the work we have done to date to rebuild our technology foundations to make us faster, safer and more resilient. A scalable, modular tech stack now underpins how we deliver new products and services, how we integrate with partners, and how we provide the protection and operational resilience customers expect.

We’ve spent the last few years simplifying and removing complexity across our technology estate, quietly transforming the bank from the inside out as we move away from legacy platforms. For example, in Commercial & Institutional, we’ve invested in Bankline to provide customers with a single point of access to a broad range of products.

At the same time, we’ve been transforming our data estate to create a single, connected view of each customer so we can anticipate needs faster, remove friction from everyday banking, and make onboarding more seamless. Working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Accenture is helping to accelerate this further. Our move to the cloud has supported this shift, giving us real time access and the ability to scale quickly as demand grows.

These improvements have a direct impact on the speed of innovation. We are putting new features into the hands of customers four times quicker than we were in 2021– such as new budget pots or our new subscription manager in our banking app. And our Retail app NPS is at an all time high.

At a glance: 2025 updates at a glance

  • Invested £1.2bn into our tech, data and AI transformation.
  • First UK bank to sign a strategic collaboration with OpenAI.
  • More than 12,000 coders using AI for software development – writing around 35% of the bank’s code.
  • Dr Maja Pantic announced as the bank’s first Chief AI Research Officer and established a pioneering AI research office.
  • Launched more than 100 new features in our retail app – saw customer advocacy scores reach an all-time high.
  • Deployed AI tools to all ~60,000 colleagues to use in their daily work. 

With the right people and partners for progress

Our people are at the heart of this. Since 2021, we’ve grown our tech and data workforce by around 6,000, with almost 1,500 of these being graduate hires across the UK and in India. In 2025 alone, we hired almost 1,000 software engineers and, the opening of our new India Hub in Bengaluru widens our access to specialist talent.

Partnerships have also played a crucial role to expand our knowledge and help us go faster in our work. Collaborating with global tech leaders like OpenAI and AWS gives us early access to emerging technologies, while our Open Innovation network keeps us close to cutting‑edge fintech developments through minority investments in companies such as Serene, Yonder and Bourn.

And by deepening our connections with universities across the UK - from Manchester and Brighton to York, Oxford and Edinburgh - we’re supporting the next generation of founders and innovators.

Our tech, data and AI transformation

Discover more about how we’ve been transforming our tech and data foundations at NatWest Group.
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2025 was the year of deployment at scale

Last year we scaled our leading AI capabilities across the bank, with all of our ~60,000 colleagues now having access to AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot Chat and our internal LLM tool – all of these have had AI training, with more than half opting for additional training to build their confidence and capability.

We’re already quicker and easier to deal with as Generative AI became even more embedded in the bank, particularly in our digital assistant, Cora. By the end of 2025, the number of customer journeys powered by GenAI had grown from four to twenty one, enabling more natural conversations, quicker resolution times and less need for colleague intervention.

The impact on colleagues has been equally significant. In Retail, AI tools have already saved more than 70,000 hours through automated call summaries and simplified complaint responses. In Private Banking and Wealth Management, we’re supercharging our Relationship Managers with AI summarisation tools that have freed up 30% more time for customer conversations. Among our specialist teams, more than 12,000 coders are already using AI to accelerate software development – writing around 35% of the bank’s code. This – alongside simplification across the business and our migration to the cloud - contributed to £100m in investment capacity in 2025 alone.

Shaping the future responsibly

AI is also strengthening how we protect customers. Our investment in AI driven analytics, machine learning detection and real time monitoring - including real time agentic AI that assesses risk and guides customer behaviour - are already keeping more customers safe from fraud. And we’re improving the experience too, with new in-app fraud self-serve tools that give customers fast, secure control when they need it most.

With the AI opportunity comes responsibility, we want to be a trusted partner to our customers in a future that will look very different to today – that’s why we’re prioritising responsible, sustainable AI.  Our pioneering Chief AI Research Office is focused on frontier level capabilities - such as audiovisual conversational AI, multi-biometrics, and proprietary small language models designed for greater security, sustainability and scale.

Our Responsible AI specialists focus on ensuring everything we build is responsible by design, supported by our AI and Data Ethics Code of Conduct and our Responsible AI training in partnership with Edinburgh University. And we’re helping shape the policy and regulatory environment through early participation in the FCA’s Live AI Testing programme. 

The next generation of fraud support, powered by agentic AI embedded in Cora, will enable customers to report and resolve fraud related cases in real time through natural language conversations.

2026 is the reality of transformative AI for customers and colleagues

If 2025 was about building and deploying leading AI capabilities, 2026 is the year that the building blocks of truly transformative AI become a reality – with agentic and voice AI enabling more intuitive, more personalised and more seamless interactions.

By the end of this quarter, 25,000 customers will have access to our new agentic financial assistant within Cora - one of the first customer facing agentic AI assistants launched by a UK bank. Underpinned by OpenAI models, customers will be able to ask natural language questions about their recent spending, in their own words on their app. Later in the year, we will experiment with voice-to-voice capability, enabling response with human-like empathy, tone and inflection.

We’re also strengthening how we support customers from evolving digital threats and scams. The next generation of fraud support, powered by agentic AI embedded in Cora, will enable customers to report and resolve fraud related cases in real time through natural language conversations.

In parallel, we’re rolling out agentic led engineering across the bank following highly successful trials in RBSI and Financial Crime that saw productivity increase tenfold. This shift will allow us to build and iterate faster, empowering colleagues with cutting edge tools and skills while continuing to attract the best engineering talent.

Looking ahead: a connected future built on a complete customer memory

As we look beyond 2026, we see a future where digital and physical banking experiences blend seamlessly, enabled by a complete customer memory as we accelerate the pace of innovation and show up in the right places.

It’s a future where the expertise of our colleagues is augmented by the intelligence and ease of modern technology - giving customers the most connected, personalised banking experience possible.

We are a trusted partner for tomorrow’s banking - shaping the future responsibly through technology, data and AI, so customers can feel confident as their needs evolve today, tomorrow and beyond.

The material published on this page is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as providing any specific advice, or used by consumers to make financial decision. Terms and conditions apply to any products or services mentioned.

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