BBVA is moving artificial intelligence from limited trials into everyday banking work by extending access to ChatGPT across almost its entire organisation.
The Spanish lender is giving more than 120,000 employees access to ChatGPT Enterprise after an internal pilot showed measurable efficiency gains, reports Bloomberg.
The expansion reflects a broader shift in the financial sector, where banks are increasingly embedding AI into core operations rather than treating it as an experimental tool.
For BBVA, the priority is improving internal productivity while strengthening long-term digital capabilities across business lines.
From pilot to daily use
The decision follows a pilot programme involving 11,000 employees across multiple teams.
BBVA said the trial showed staff were saving around three hours per week on routine tasks such as drafting documents, summarising information, and managing repetitive internal requests.
Based on these results, the bank opted to scale ChatGPT Enterprise across most of its workforce rather than restrict access to specialist or technical roles.
The move positions AI as a standard workplace tool rather than a niche productivity aid.
Cost and operational shift
Although BBVA and OpenAI did not disclose the financial terms of their agreement, typical enterprise pricing models suggest that rolling out AI tools at this scale can amount to a substantial annual expense for a global organisation.
The investment highlights how large banks are beginning to treat AI spending as part of core operating costs.
Rather than short-term trials, BBVA is aligning AI deployment with long-term efficiency, automation, and process optimisation goals.
This approach reflects growing pressure on banks to modernise workflows while managing costs and regulatory complexity.
BBVA said governance frameworks and controls will guide employee use of ChatGPT, ensuring responsible adoption across regulated banking environments globally.
Internal AI capabilities
The ChatGPT rollout builds on BBVA’s existing AI infrastructure. The bank employs more than 1,000 scientists who design and run AI models, supported by around 2,500 data specialists.
These teams already apply AI across areas such as risk management, fraud detection, and customer analytics.
ChatGPT is designed to complement this in-house expertise by providing a general-purpose AI tool that can be used across departments, including technology, corporate functions, and retail banking operations.
The aim is to reduce friction between specialist AI teams and everyday business users.
Customer tools and agentic AI
BBVA is also extending its AI ambitions to customer-facing services.
Its digital financial assistant, Blue, is currently live in Spain and Mexico and can handle around 150 customer queries.
These include everyday account-related questions and service interactions.
The bank is now working to expand the assistant’s capabilities so it can carry out transactions independently.
This type of functionality, often described as agentic AI, would allow systems to act on a user’s behalf within set rules, potentially reshaping digital banking experiences.
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